Info & Insights - Embodied Therapies Blog

Why Connection Is Essential for Healing

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:28:56 GMT

Connection is not just something we want. It is something we need.

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Within The Soma Massage Method™, connection is recognised as a core principle of healing. Not as an optional extra, but as something deeply biological. Something wired into us from the very beginning.

When Connection Feels Unsafe

For some people, connection does not feel natural or easy. Early experiences with caregivers play a significant role in shaping how we relate to others. If connection in those early years felt conditional, inconsistent, or unsafe, it can leave a lasting imprint.

Instead of feeling supported by others, we may learn to rely only on ourselves. We become hyper-independent. We avoid vulnerability. Trust feels difficult. This is not a flaw, it's an adaptation.

The nervous system learns what feels safe and builds patterns around that. If closeness once felt unsafe, distance can feel like protection.

The Biological Need for Connection

Despite these adaptations, the drive to connect never disappears. Human beings are wired for connection. Historically, survival depended on it. Our ancestors lived in tribes, relying on one another for safety, support, and survival.

Being part of a group was not just beneficial. It was essential. This same biological wiring still exists today. Even if our experiences have made connection feel difficult, the underlying need remains.

The Role of the Therapeutic Relationship

This is where the therapeutic space becomes so powerful. When a client struggles with trust or connection, the relationship with the therapist offers an opportunity to experience something different. Something safe. Something consistent. Through this relationship, new patterns can begin to form.

The process takes time. Trust cannot be rushed, but with steady, attuned support, the nervous system can begin to soften.

Clients can start to experience connection without fear, without conditions, without needing to protect themselves in the same way.

Rewiring Patterns of Hyper-Independence

Healing often involves gently undoing old patterns and creating new ones. The neural pathways that support hyper-independence and disconnection were formed for a reason. They served a purpose, but they may no longer be helpful.

Through safe, consistent connection, new pathways can be built. Ones rooted in trust, safety, and relational support. This is not about losing independence. It is about expanding capacity and learning that it is possible to both stand on your own and lean on others when needed.

You Do Not Have to Do It Alone

There is a common belief that healing is something we should be able to do by ourselves, but healing in isolation can only go so far. Trying to navigate everything alone, without connection or support, can actually slow the process down. It can keep us stuck in the very patterns we are trying to move beyond.

Healing happens faster, and often more deeply, when we allow ourselves to be supported.

A Different Way Forward

Connection offers a new possibility. A space where you can be seen, supported, and understood. A space where trust can be rebuilt at your own pace. Within the Soma Massage Method™, connection is not forced. It is cultivated, gently, consistently, and with care. And from that place, something begins to shift.

If connection has felt difficult in the past, you are not alone, but it is not the end of the story. With the right support, new experiences, and safe relationships, it is possible to rediscover connection in a way that feels grounded, steady, and real.

For Therapists Ready to Deepen Their Practice

If you are a therapist who recognises the importance of connection in healing and want to bring this into your work in a more embodied, meaningful way, this is your invitation.

The Soma Massage Method™ is designed to help you move beyond technique and into truly relational, transformative practice. A way of working that supports your clients to build trust, reconnect, and heal at a deeper level.

If you feel called to expand your skills and grow both professionally and personally, join the waitlist today.

Be the first to hear when enrolment opens and take the next step towards becoming a more grounded, attuned, and impactful practitioner.

The Power Of Presence

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 10:30:19 GMT

What does presence really mean to you?

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Presence is a word we hear often, yet rarely pause to fully feel or understand. In the Soma Massage method, presence is not just a concept. It is a foundational principle. One that has the power to transform how we relate to ourselves and others. At its core, presence is about being fully here. Not distracted. Not performing. Not thinking ahead. Just deeply, attentively with what is.

Why Presence Matters

In therapeutic work, presence is not something that can be faked. It is something that is felt. Clients do not just hear what is said. Their nervous systems pick up on the quality of attention, the level of attunement, and the depth of connection being offered. This happens below conscious awareness. When a practitioner brings full, embodied presence into a session, something powerful begins to unfold. Clients start to feel safe enough to soften. To unwind. To let go of the layers they have been holding onto.

This is where real healing begins.

Meeting Without Judgement

True presence requires us to meet another person exactly where they are, without judgement, assumption, or expectation. In The Soma Massage Method™, this means the practitioner steps out of their own story. Personal thoughts, distractions, and identity are set aside to make space for the client. This is not about detachment. It is about deep connection without interference. When clients feel this level of acceptance, they are given a rare opportunity. They can begin to meet themselves in the same way.

The Cost of Living in Performance Mode

Many people move through life in what could be described as performance mode. There are roles to fulfil, responsibilities to manage, and expectations to meet. Even self-care can become another task to squeeze into an already full schedule. In the midst of all this doing, it is easy to lose touch with who we really are.

Moments of genuine presence, where someone is fully with us without distraction or agenda, are surprisingly rare. Even within close relationships, this level of attunement can be difficult to sustain. This is why therapeutic presence is so powerful. It creates a space that many people have never truly experienced before.

Being Seen, Heard, and Felt

Within a Soma Massage session, presence allows clients to feel fully seen, heard, and validated. There is no need to perform. No need to explain or justify. Just space to be.

In this environment, clients can begin to drop their guard. To move beyond protective patterns that may have once been necessary but are no longer serving them. This process of “de-armouring” is not forced. It happens naturally when the body senses it is safe to do so.

Presence Invites Vulnerability.

To be truly present with ourselves requires honesty. It asks us to acknowledge what we feel, without distraction or avoidance. For many, this can feel unfamiliar or even uncomfortable at first. Protective strategies often develop for good reason. They have helped us navigate life up until now, but in a space of genuine presence, supported by another regulated nervous system, something begins to shift. Clients can explore themselves more deeply, at their own pace.

Co-Regulation and Connection

One of the most powerful aspects of presence is co-regulation. When a practitioner is calm, grounded, and fully present, the client’s nervous system can begin to mirror that state. This shared regulation creates the conditions for deeper healing. For clients who may struggle to regulate on their own, this experience can be profoundly impactful. It offers a felt sense of connection, safety, and stability.

A Space for Transformation

Presence is not passive. It is deeply active in its stillness. It creates the conditions for transformation by allowing clients to reconnect with themselves. To understand who they are beneath the layers of expectation, stress, and protection. This is the essence of The Soma Massage Method™. Not just physical touch, but relational depth. Not just technique, but connection.

In a world that constantly pulls our attention in multiple directions, presence is a rare and powerful gift.

To offer it to another person is profound. To offer it to yourself is life-changing.

If you are ready to support your clients at a deeper level and grow your practice with confidence and integrity, join the waitlist today. Be the first to hear when enrolment opens and take the next step in your professional and personal development.

Why Safety Is the Foundation of Healing

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 15:05:24 GMT

In a world that rarely slows down, safety has become more than a luxury. It is a necessity.

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At the heart of The Soma Massage Method™ lies a simple yet powerful principle: safety is the cornerstone of all healing . Without it, the body cannot truly rest, restore, or recalibrate. With it, the nervous system can begin to shift out of stress and into balance.

Living in a Constant State of Stress

Modern life exposes us to a relentless stream of stressors. From the moment we turn on the television or scroll through the news, we are met with information that can subtly activate our stress response. Even everyday experiences like driving in traffic, managing deadlines, or opening a challenging email can trigger the same physiological reactions as a life-threatening situation.

The nervous system does not distinguish between a real physical threat and a perceived one. Whether it is a tiger on the savannah or a difficult conversation at work, the body responds in the same way.

Over time, this creates a baseline of low-level stress that many people no longer consciously notice, yet it continues to affect their wellbeing.

The Hidden Layer: Internal Stress

Beyond external pressures, there is another layer of stress that is often overlooked: the one we create internally. Humans have a unique ability to ruminate on the past and worry about the future. We replay conversations, question decisions, and imagine worst-case scenarios. This constant mental activity keeps the nervous system activated, even in the absence of immediate external stressors.

This means that stress is not just something happening around us. It is also something happening within us.

Why Safety Matters

Safety provides the antidote. When the body perceives safety, the nervous system can begin to regulate. This is where healing happens. In a state of safety, the body can:

Rest deeply
Restore energy
Rebalance internal systems
Move out of chronic stress patterns

Without this foundation, any attempt at healing is working against a constantly activated stress response.

The Role of the Therapist

In The Soma Massage Method,™ safety begins with the practitioner. Therapists are encouraged to cultivate their own internal sense of safety through ongoing self-awareness and personal work. Being grounded and centred is not optional. It is essential.

Clients are highly attuned to this, often beyond conscious awareness. The nervous system reads subtle cues such as presence, energy, and regulation. If a therapist is calm and regulated, the client’s system can begin to mirror that state. If not, the opposite can occur.

This is why the work starts within.

Creating a Space for Healing

True therapeutic work is not just about technique. It is about creating an environment where the client feels safe enough to let go.

This involves:

A calm and grounded practitioner
A supportive and non-judgemental space
An awareness of the client’s nervous system state
A commitment to ongoing personal development

When safety is present, the body does what it is designed to do. It heals.

Safety is not simply a concept. It is a felt experience. In a world filled with constant stimulation and stress, intentionally cultivating safety, both within ourselves and for others, becomes one of the most powerful tools we have.

Whether you are a practitioner or someone seeking healing, the message is the same: Start with safety. Everything else builds from there.

Why I Created the Soma Massage Method™

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 08:00:22 GMT

From Personal Healing to Professional Practice

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If you are considering The Soma Massage Method™, it is natural to wonder who is guiding you and what has shaped this work. This is not just a method built on theory. It is grounded in lived experience, years of practice, and a deep commitment to helping others find regulation, safety, and authenticity.

A Personal Journey Through Dysregulation

My early life was marked by chronic and acute childhood trauma. As I moved into my twenties, I found myself navigating life from a place of deep dysregulation. I experienced ongoing overwhelm, anxiety, and internal chaos, often swinging between heightened stress and periods of shutdown and depression. Like many people, I developed coping strategies to manage how I felt. These included drinking, drug use, and working in high-pressure environments where over-giving became the norm. At the time, these strategies felt necessary. I did not yet have the awareness or tools to do things differently.

The Turning Point: Beginning the Healing Journey

Towards the end of my twenties, I began my own healing journey. I entered therapy and committed to understanding myself on a deeper level. Over the past twenty years, I have explored multiple therapeutic approaches, gaining insight into nervous system regulation, neuroscience, and the patterns that keep us stuck. Through this work, I moved from surviving to living with intention. I learnt how to regulate my nervous system, recognise unhelpful coping strategies, and replace them with healthier ways of being.

From Personal Healing to Professional Practice

Alongside my personal journey, I have spent over twenty-five years working as a bodyworker, supporting thousands of clients. Many came to me not only with physical symptoms but with deeper patterns rooted in coping strategies and unresolved experiences. I began to notice something important. Often, it was not just past trauma causing distress, but the very ways people had learnt to cope with it. These strategies, while once protective, were now creating further challenges in their lives.

This realisation led me to go deeper in my work with clients and ultimately to develop what is now known as The Soma Massage Method™.

What Makes The Soma Massage Method™ Different

The Soma Massage Method™ is built on six core principles:

Presence
Connection
Co-regulation
Resilience building
A client-centred approach
A student-centred learning environment

This work is not just about technique. It is about how we show up, how we relate, and how we create safety for others. When working with clients, the approach is deeply client-centred. When teaching students, the focus shifts to supporting each individual’s learning experience. Small group sizes ensure that every student receives the attention and guidance they need.

Living the Work

One of the most important aspects of this method is congruence. I practise what I teach. That does not mean I never experience stress or dysregulation. I do. But I now have the tools and awareness to respond differently. I live with intention, presence, and a conscious approach to life. This way of living creates a sense of safety that clients can feel. It allows them to enter a therapeutic space where they can begin to regulate, connect, and build resilience within themselves.

An Invitation to You

The Soma Massage Method™ is more than a professional training. It is an invitation to live and work in a way that is aligned, conscious, and supportive of both you and your clients. When you are regulated, present, and connected, you become a safe and grounded practitioner. From that place, you are able to support others more effectively and authentically.

If you are ready to deepen your work, expand your understanding, and embody a more conscious way of being, The Soma Massage Method™ is here to support you on that journey.

What Will You Learn in The Soma Massage Method™?

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 08:00:14 GMT

Training beyond techniques

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When approaching any training, it is natural to wonder what you will actually take away from it. In The Soma Massage Method™, the answer is both practical and deeply personal. While you will learn techniques and structured approaches, the heart of this training goes far beyond doing. It is about how you show up, both for yourself and for others.

Over the two days, you are introduced to a complete Soma Massage Method™ that includes practical tools, hands-on techniques, and somatic practices you can use with your clients. These elements provide a clear framework and help you feel confident in applying what you learn. However, the training does not stop at technique. It invites you into a much richer experience, one that is rooted in embodiment rather than observation.

This is a fully immersive training. Rather than sitting back and absorbing information, you are encouraged to step into the work and experience it for yourself. You begin to slow down, to notice, and to connect in a way that is often missing in everyday life. This immersion allows the learning to move beyond the intellectual and into something you can truly feel and understand from within.

At the core of The Soma Massage Method™ are six guiding principles:

being client-centred,
creating safety,
building connection,
supporting regulation,
raising resilience, and
cultivating presence.

These principles are not simply taught as ideas. They are actively demonstrated and lived throughout the training, so you experience them directly rather than just hearing about them.

A key part of this process is the focus on self-connection. You are not only learning how to support others, but also how to meet yourself more fully. Through shared experiences and guided practice, you begin to understand what it means to feel safe in your own body and to be present with yourself. This creates a strong foundation, because the ability to offer safety and connection to others starts with your own internal experience.

The training is also intentionally student-centred. Just as sessions with clients are centred around their needs, this course is designed to support you as an individual. There is space to explore, reflect, and connect at your own pace. This creates an environment that feels supportive and human, rather than rigid or prescriptive.

By the end of the two days, you will not only understand The Soma Massage Method™, you will have experienced it in a meaningful way. You will know what it feels like to be present, to connect, and to hold space. This means you return to your clients not just with knowledge, but with something embodied and real.

Ultimately, what you learn in this training is not just a set of skills. It is a way of being. One that prioritises presence, safety, and genuine connection. And that is what allows your work to become more impactful, more authentic, and more deeply supportive for the people you serve.

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Co-Regulation: The Quiet Art of Healing Together

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 16:49:10 GMT

You are not here to fix

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There is a quiet misconception in the world of wellbeing work that healing must always involve fixing, solving, or guiding. That the practitioner holds the answers. That transformation comes from being told what to do.

But what if true support looks very different?

There's a gentler, more powerful truth, onne rooted in presence, not performance. In listening, not leading. In allowing, not correcting.

You Are Not Here to Fix

In Soma-based work, there is a clear boundary. You are not a psychotherapist, counsellor, or coach. You are not there to analyse, diagnose, or resolve someone’s life. Instead, your role is much simpler, and far more profound. You create a safe space.

A space where someone can arrive exactly as they are. Where nothing needs to be hidden, improved, or explained away. Where they are not being assessed or guided towards an outcome. This shift alone changes everything, because when people feel safe, they begin to open.

The Power of Being Witnessed

There is something deeply regulating about being fully seen and heard.

Not interrupted. Not redirected. Not fixed.

Just witnessed.

Listening, in this context, is not passive. It is an active, embodied practice. You are listening not just with your ears, but with your whole presence, through your body language, your eye contact, your tone of voice. You are communicating, without words, “I am here with you.”

And that is often more than enough.

When someone feels witnessed in this way, their experience is validated, their emotions are given space to exist, and in that space, something begins to soften.

Supporting Without Taking Over

Of course, there are moments where support can be offered. Gentle somatic practices can help clients move through difficult emotions. These are not solutions imposed from the outside, but invitations. Tools that empower clients to connect with their own internal world. This is a key distinction.

You are not leading them away from their experience. You are supporting them to move through it, at their own pace.

The Role of Soma Massage

Soma massage adds another layer to this work. It creates an opportunity for clients to slow down. To drop out of the busyness of everyday life and into their bodies. Into the present moment.

In that stillness, something opens. Clients often begin to hear themselves more clearly. To feel what has been buried beneath distraction and noise. To reconnect with parts of themselves they may not have accessed in days, weeks, or even longer. And importantly, this is where their answers emerge.

Not from you. From them.

Healing Through Self-Connection

This approach honours a powerful belief: that people are not broken. They do not need to be fixed. They need space to reconnect with themselves. When you hold that space with care, presence, and respect, you create the conditions for self-discovery. For clarity. For healing that comes from within, rather than being imposed from the outside. This is the quiet art of co-regulation. Two nervous systems in a shared space. One offering steadiness, the other finding its way back to balance.

The Work Is in the Being

It can feel counterintuitive at first. To do less. To say less. To resist the urge to help in the way we have been taught. But this is the work. Not in fixing, but in being. Not in leading, but in holding. Not in giving answers, but in trusting that your clients already have them.

And when you truly embody that, you offer something incredibly rare.

A space where people can finally meet themselves.

The Soma Massage Method™ Is Now Open for Registration

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 16:12:17 GMT

Support your clients at a deeper level

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If you are a bodyworker who senses there is something deeper than standard massage protocols, The Soma Massage Method™ has been created with you in mind.

I am delighted to announce that the Soma Massage Method is now open for registration. The next training takes place on 20 April in Lancashire , and it offers a powerful opportunity to expand your practice, your understanding of the body, and the way you support your clients.

Many practitioners reach a point where they have learned multiple techniques and modalities. Yet something still feels missing. You may recognise that your clients are carrying deeper layers of stress or trauma, and traditional approaches do not always provide the space needed for lasting change.

The Soma Massage Method is designed to meet that need.

Moving Beyond Standard Bodywork

This training introduces a different approach to bodywork. Instead of focusing only on muscles and structural techniques, we explore how the nervous system shapes the body’s capacity to heal . Somatic bodywork works beneath the surface. It supports the body at the level of the nervous system, helping clients move from states of tension and stress into greater regulation and resilience.

When clients feel safe within their nervous system, their bodies can begin the natural process of healing. Chronic stress can soften. Symptoms linked to trauma can begin to shift. The body regains its ability to restore balance.

As practitioners, our role becomes less about fixing and more about creating the conditions where healing can happen .

What You Will Learn

During this two day immersion, you will gain both practical tools and a strong theoretical foundation.

You will learn The Soma Massage protocol , a structured yet responsive approach to somatic bodywork that can be integrated into your existing practice. Alongside this, the training introduces a wide range of tools and practices designed to support both practitioner and client. These include:

Nervous system regulation practices
Somatic awareness techniques
Safety and grounding protocols
Ways to support clients beyond the treatment session

These tools help you create a therapeutic environment where clients feel safe, supported and able to explore their body’s experience. Equally important is the understanding behind the work. The training includes clear, accessible theory rooted in neuroscience and nervous system regulation , helping you understand why these approaches are effective and how to apply them with confidence.

An Embodied Learning Experience

The Soma Massage Method™ is not simply about learning techniques. It is about embodied presence . Throughout the training you will spend time giving and receiving bodywork, exploring the practices first hand and developing deeper awareness in your own body. This immersion allows the learning to be felt, not just understood intellectually.

By experiencing the work yourself, you gain a much richer understanding of how to support your clients.

Many practitioners find that this process transforms their own relationship with their body and their work.

Building Confidence and Safety in Your Practice

One of the most important elements of somatic bodywork is safety. Clients who are experiencing chronic stress or trauma symptoms need a practitioner who understands how to create a regulated and supportive environment.

The Soma Massage Method™ includes clear safety protocols that help you feel confident in your ability to hold space for clients. These guidelines ensure that both you and your clients remain grounded, supported and safe throughout the work.

With these foundations in place, sessions can become deeply restorative experiences that help clients reconnect with their body’s natural capacity for healing.

Join The Soma Massage Method™

The upcoming training will take place in a beautiful and serene location in Lancashire , offering the perfect setting for focused learning, practice and reflection.

Over two days you will:

Learn the Soma Massage protocol
Explore somatic tools and practices
Understand nervous system regulation
Experience embodied bodywork practice
Build confidence in supporting deeper client processes

If you feel called to take your bodywork practice to a deeper level, this training may be exactly what you have been looking for.

Registration is now open, and places are limited to ensure a supportive and immersive learning environment.

If you would like to explore the details of the programme, or if you have any questions, you are warmly invited to learn more and reach out.

Your next step as a practitioner may begin here.

What ‘trauma-sensitive’ really means

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 17:09:30 GMT

Understanding What Trauma Sensitive Really Means in The Soma Massage Method™

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There have been a few questions recently about how The Soma Massage Method™ relates to trauma. It is an important conversation, and one that deserves clarity.

First and foremost, The Soma Massage Method™ does not train practitioners to become trauma therapists. That role belongs to psychologists and psychotherapists who are specifically trained to provide trauma therapy . However, the work is intentionally trauma informed, trauma sensitive and trauma aware.

The Reality of Working With the Nervous System

By its very nature, Soma Massage works directly with the nervous system. When we work with the nervous system, we are often working with the symptoms of trauma, whether or not that trauma has been formally identified.

Many clients arrive with:

A history of trauma
Chronic stress
Physical symptoms with no clear cause
Emotional or mental overwhelm
Energetic or spiritual disconnection

Trauma does not only live in the mind. It can manifest physically, mentally, emotionally and energetically. When someone has experienced prolonged stress or trauma, their nervous system adapts. Over time, those adaptations can show up in the body as tension, fatigue, anxiety, pain or shutdown.

This is where trauma sensitive bodywork becomes powerful.

Trauma Therapy Versus Trauma Sensitive Practice

There is an important distinction to make. Trauma therapy focuses on processing and healing traumatic events directly. That is specialist work. Trauma sensitive practice, on the other hand, recognises the impact of trauma on the nervous system and responds with care, awareness and safety.

The Soma Massage Method™ offers:

Education around nervous system regulation
Insight into polyvagal theory
Somatic practices to support regulation
Bodywork that honours safety and consent
Clear safety making protocols for practitioner and client

Practitioners are not diagnosing or treating trauma in a clinical sense. They are creating safe, regulated spaces where the body can begin to soften and settle.

Safety First, Always

A core part of trauma sensitive work is safety. Practitioners learn how to:

Recognise signs of dysregulation
Pace sessions appropriately
Stay regulated themselves
Create a space where clients feel seen and supported
Protect their own wellbeing while supporting others

When practitioners understand their own nervous system, they are far better equipped to support the nervous systems of their clients. This dual awareness is essential. You cannot co regulate effectively if you are not grounded yourself.

Supporting Without Overstepping

The Soma Massage Method™ respects professional boundaries. We do not step into the role of trauma therapist. Instead, we offer:

Regulating touch
Somatic awareness
Grounded presence
Practical tools clients can use in daily life

Sometimes the most profound support is not about analysing the past. It is about helping the body feel safe in the present moment. When the nervous system feels safe, the body has space to shift.

A Compassionate and Professional Approach

Being trauma sensitive is not about labelling every client as traumatised. It is about understanding that many people carry stress responses shaped by past experiences.

It is about:

Moving slowly
Listening deeply
Respecting boundaries
Honouring consent
Holding space without trying to fix

In essence, trauma sensitive practice is an attitude as much as it is a skill set. The Soma Massage Method™ equips practitioners with knowledge, tools and embodied awareness so they can support clients responsibly, ethically and safely. It empowers practitioners to work confidently with nervous system regulation while staying within their professional scope. And in a world where chronic stress and trauma are increasingly common, that kind of grounded, informed support matters more than ever.

A New Kind of Massage Training

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 19:33:00 GMT

Are you a therapist who wants to go deeper than technique?

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Terms like trauma-informed , nervous system regulation , and somatics are everywhere in the world of wellness and therapy right now. But beyond the buzzwords lies a deeper question: Do you really understand what it means to help your clients feel safe, regulated, and connected? And more importantly, are you practising it?

In today’s massage and bodywork world, disciplines alone are no longer enough. The Soma Massage Method™ was born out of this realisation. Over years of client work, the method's founder recognised that a truly effective therapeutic experience isn’t just about skill, it's about presence.

Soma Massage™ brings together a set of core conditions that support deeper healing: presence over performance, safety over structure, and connection over technique. It’s not just client-centred in name, but in practice.

When we, as therapists, show up fully embodied, regulated, and grounded, we create the conditions where clients feel safe. And when clients feel safe, healing becomes possible. This isn't theoretical, it's reflected in results: fuller bookings, returning clients, and more meaningful work.

If you’re a therapist sensing that there’s more to learn, not more modalities, but a new way of being in your practice, The Soma Massage Method™ might be exactly what you’ve been searching for.

https://www.thesomamethod.co.uk/f/waitlist

What It Means to Be an Embodied Therapist

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 12:55:21 GMT

Have you ever had a massage that felt... empty?

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You show up, lie on the table, and the therapist goes through the motions. Maybe the technique is fine. But something’s missing. The session feels transactional. Disconnected. Like the therapist isn’t really there .

As a client, your body picks up on this. It senses the absence. And what could have been a deeply restorative experience becomes just another appointment to get through.

This is where embodiment makes all the difference.

Embodiment isn’t about perfecting technique or learning every modality under the sun. It’s about presence. As therapists, when we’re grounded in our own bodies, when we’re truly present, our clients can feel that. And more importantly, they can begin to reconnect with themselves.

In The SOMA Massage Method™ , embodiment is at the core of everything. It’s not about how deep you go or how “fancy” your tools are, it’s about how present you are with the person in front of you. That presence creates a space where your client can come home to themselves, perhaps for the first time in a long while.

Therapists often come to this work with plenty of skills and techniques under their belts. But if you’ve ever felt that something is still missing in your practice, embodiment could be the missing link. And the good news? It starts with you, with learning how to become fully grounded and connected in your own body first.

Because when you show up as an embodied therapist, your clients don’t just get a massage. They get an experience that invites real transformation.

If you'd like to explore how you can become and embodied therapist using The SOMA Massage Method™, sign up now to find out more

Emotional Healing Starts with Safety

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 11:18:51 GMT

How safe do you actually feel in your body, right now?

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It’s easy to assume we’re safe when life appears stable. A steady job, a comfortable home, a social circle. On paper, things may seem perfectly fine, but if your body tells a different story through tension, pain, restlessness, or emotional turbulence, there’s a deeper truth at play.

Many of us live in a state of subtle or chronic bracing. Our bodies hold stress even while our minds try to reassure us everything is okay. This disconnect is often a reflection of a nervous system that doesn’t feel safe, even in the absence of real danger.

In today’s world of constant notifications, unending emails, and the pressure to always be "on," our nervous systems are frequently on high alert. Social media, news cycles, and 24/7 accessibility can feed a state of hypervigilance. Over time, this persistent activation drains us, making it hard to rest, feel present, or connect with others meaningfully.

Healing, then, isn’t just about self-awareness or talking through emotions, it begins with creating genuine safety in the body.

This is where practices like Soma Massage can offer profound support. Through touch, connection, and co-regulation, Soma Massage sends a powerful, wordless message to the nervous system: you are safe . And once your body truly feels safe, healing can begin.

In the presence of safety, the body softens. The mind quiets. Emotions balance. And we return to ourselves, not just surviving, but living.

If you find yourself always tense, anxious, or overwhelmed, consider this: what would it take to feel safe in your own skin again?

The Massage That Moves More Than Muscles

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 13:56:45 GMT

Trauma and stress aren't matter in the muscles; it’s physiology imprinted in the nervous system.

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There comes a point in many bodyworkers’ journeys when they realise their work is touching something deeper than just the physical . The muscles, tendons and ligaments may be the starting point, but true healing often goes far beyond that.

Over the past 25 years, my work has evolved from sports massage focused on muscle recovery to something much more integrated. In my early career, I spent time supporting athletes at events like the London Marathon. My role was to help them recover from injury and strain, to keep their bodies functioning at their best. At that time, I believed I was simply working with the body. But alongside that, I was also navigating my own healing, recovering from childhood trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder.

As the years unfolded, and as I studied more deeply, through courses on neuroscience, somatic practices and trauma recovery , it became clear that massage was never just physical. Our bodies hold our stories . They carry tension not only from movement and injury but from emotional stress, mental overload and spiritual disconnection.

Now I understand that what I offer in my sessions touches all layers of the person. The physical body, yes, but also the emotional, mental, energetic and even relational aspects of who we are. Everything is connected , and at the centre of it all is the nervous system.

In recent years, my focus has turned toward nervous system regulation. The nervous system acts as the master controller for how we feel, function and relate. When it is out of balance, we may experience pain, anxiety, exhaustion, or chronic stress without understanding why.

So often clients arrive with physical symptoms, tight shoulders, aching backs, general discomfort, and no clear medical diagnosis. More often than not, this is the body expressing nervous system dysregulation .

This understanding has shaped the development of SOMA Massage , a method I’ve been refining over the past eight years. SOMA brings together everything I’ve learned, from the physical foundations of massage to the emotional and neurological insights gained through years of study and practice.

This approach allows clients to be met exactly where they are. Whether it is stress, emotional overwhelm, injury recovery or simply a longing to feel more at ease in their body, SOMA Massage offers a space of deep listening and support. It is not just about easing muscle pain. It is about restoring connection and helping people feel safe and balanced within themselves.

If we want true healing, we must honour the whole person. SOMA Massage is my way of doing just that, holding space for each layer of the self to be seen, supported and gently guided back to balance.

Curious about becoming a SOMA Massage Method practitioner?

If this approach speaks to you and you feel called to support others in a deeper, more integrated way, you're warmly invited to explore the practitioner pathway. You can join the waitlist now to be the first to hear when doors open.

What is SOMA Massage?

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 16:45:13 GMT

A powerful antidote to the hurriedness of life.

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If you’ve been feeling swept away by the pace of life, endlessly doing, tending to others, chasing outcomes, or simply living on autopilot, it may be time to come back to yourself.

SOMA Massage offers just tha t: a gentle, grounded invitation to reconnect with your body, your breath, and your being.

Unlike traditional massage that often focuses on fixing or manipulating the body, SOMA Massage takes a different approach. It is not about pushing, pulling, or prodding. Instead, it is about meeting you exactly where you are ; physically, mentally, emotionally, and energetically.

At its core, SOMA Massage is a healing practice that begins even before you lie down on the massage table. Sessions start with a conversation, an exploration of what might be present for you. Whether it’s tension in your body, racing thoughts, emotional overwhelm, or energetic fatigue, this space honours all of it.

Together, we look at what might be bothering you, not just physically, but mentally or spiritually, and how we can support your return to balance through the session and beyond. You’ll also be offered simple, accessible somatic practices you can use outside of your treatment to continue your healing journey and return to your baseline.

When you lie on the table, you’re not there to be fixed, you’re there to be held, witnessed, and supported. The bodywork is slow, mindful, and deeply calming. It goes beyond the physical to work on the level of the nervous system, inviting your body into a state of regulation and rest. You may notice your muscles softening, your mind quieting, and your emotions gently settling.

SOMA Massage is a powerful antidote to the hurriedness of life . It offers a space where anxiety, stress, and overwhelm can dissolve, where you can simply be yourself, free from expectations.

You may find, perhaps for the first time in a long time, what it feels like to truly land in your body. To feel seen, accepted, and validated, not just by the therapist, but by yourself.

And that’s the real gift: a permission slip to return home to yourself.

Understanding the Nervous System: Beyond Rest and Digest

Sun, 26 Oct 2025 19:20:00 GMT

A resilient and robust nervous system offers greater capacity to deal with all that life throws at us - the good, the bad and the ugly

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In today’s fast-paced, often stressful world, many of us long simply to feel deeply relaxed, grounded, and at peace, ideally in a constant state of ‘rest and digest’.

For some, especially those who have experienced trauma or chronic stress, this state might seem elusive or even unnatural.

While the idea of being in rest and digest all the time sounds appealing, it’s not the true goal of healing or living our best lives. Instead, the aim is to cultivate a robust nervous system - one that can switch effortlessly between states of calm and alertness, manage challenges effectively, and recover quickly from stress.

Understanding the Nervous System: Beyond Rest and Digest

The nervous system has the various well documented states: fight, flight, freeze, and rest and digest. The latter, known as the parasympathetic response, is when the body relaxes, repairs, and restores.

However, because human life naturally involves stresses and challenges, and our nervous system needs to adapt and respond appropriately, what we really need is a resilient nervous system—one that can handle difficulty without becoming overwhelmed, and then return to calm when needed.

In reality however, many of my clients live in chronic stress, always on alert or in shutdown mode. That’s where somatic massage comes into play.

The Role of Somatic Massage in Nervous System Regulation

My somatic massage sessions are designed as an opportunity to experience that deep, restorative state of calm.

Through initial and ongoing psychoeducation, I help clients understand the different nervous system states, emphasising that the goal is not perpetual rest or calm but resilience building. My unique style of massage work allows clients to temporarily dip into that vital rest and digest state.

Many clients haven’t experienced true deep rest for a long time. Chronic stress keeps their nervous systems in heightened states of alertness or shutdown, which drains resilience and hinders healing .

With my facilitation through the sessions and bodywork, clients may learn to drop into the rest and digest state through co-regulation and gradually, they learn this for themselves. With consistent practice, tools and techniques that I share over and above the bodywork, clients expand their resilience , gradually broadening their capacity to experience moments of safety and calm independently.

Somatic massage helps the body and brain experience and recognise the state of safety, a crucial step in healing because chronic stress and trauma keeps us in states of stress ie feeling unsafe, whilst learning to stay in a state of deep rest strengthens neural pathways associated with safety.

Why Is This Deep Rest So Important?

Deep rest creates space for recovery - including cellular repair, emotional processing, and recalibration of all the internal systems - and it grows resilience.

This resilience is fundamental to health. It’s what allows us to manage life’s inevitable challenges more effectively, with less overwhelm. A resilient nervous system can switch comfortably between states , being alert and robust enough to face difficulties and relaxed enough to recover and thrive.

Building Resilience: The Path to True Healing

My work with trauma, stress and nervous system regulation is grounded in this principle. The somatic massage I provide offers more than physical, mental and emotional support; it’s an intentional step toward building a robust nervous system, one that can handle stress adaptively and flexibly, and clients can learn equally to feel safe in their own body deeply and implicitly, regardless of what life throws at them.

Clients experience deep relaxation and safety during sessions, creating an anchor for future self regulation.
These experiences help weaken automatic triggers into to stress states .
Increasingly, clients develop a stronger capacity to seek out and generate states of calm, continuing to improve their overall resilience.
With greater resilience, everyday stresses become easier to manage, and healing from trauma and chronic stress becomes more sustainable, enabling post traumatic growth .

Resilience Over Perfection

The goal isn’t to be in rest and digest all the time. Instead, I encourage my clients to cultivate a resilient nervous system that can skillfully navigate life’s challenges and return quicker and easier to a baseline of peace. Through somatic massage and psychoeducation, they learn to build that resilience.

If you feel overwhelmed by chronic stress or trauma, know that deep, restorative rest is possible - and that this is key to growing your resilience, providing a most powerful foundation for true and empowered healing.

Safety is the Cornerstone of Healing

Sun, 14 Sep 2025 17:17:50 GMT

Creating a safe environment is essential to reduce anxiety and stress, and encourage a sense of control and agency in clients

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Welcome to Embodied Therapies.

I feel the most important role as therapist is to support my clients to feel safe , and the environment is a fundamental aspect that can really influence the therapeutic process for the better.

Embodied Therapies is located on a quiet residential road, providing a private and supportive setting that seems to reduce anxiety instantly and creates a psychological container to enable my clients to feel secure enough to explore challenging thoughts and emotions.

My space is comfortable and calming, serene and soothing – enabling clients to think clearly, to feel relaxed and regulated enough to drop into deeper states of awareness for more meaningful therapeutic processing.

The environment I provide contributes to that foundation of physical and emotional security , enabling my clients to feel protected, open to growth , so that they can get the most from their sessions and to thrive.

Are you on the Hamsterwheel of Healing?

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 14:54:31 GMT

Does it feel like a hustle being on your healing journey?

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I think there’s a danger we can end up feeling that way sometimes and feeling as if we need to be fixed. And certainly social media will have it so that there are quick fixes everywhere abound, and if we just sign up for this course, that course, this modality .. we can pretty much get healed and fixed very quickly.

However healing doesn’t work that way. It’s a lifetime’s journey . I’ve been on my journey for almost 30 years now and I still get triggered. I still can feel like an imposter. I can get upset, over tired, distressed, feel I’m not good enough.

And I have to take myself by the hand and apply my own medicine at times like that.

I think there’s a danger that we think we can be fixed and we’re seeking some form of perfection , when healing isn’t that way.

It’s stripping back the lays of conditioning. it’s finding ourselves amidst all the chaos - out there and within, and really getting into grips with who we are and coming to terms with who we are; meeting ourselves, having the dark nights of the soul, and without all the razzmatazz, without all the modalities, the podcasts, the books, the courses, the retreats etcetera - just making peace with who we are and that we're very human in the end.

And the invitation is to be human ; that’s the idea behind healing, for me anyway.

So invite you to remember when you’re on that hamsterwheel of healing, feeling it’s like a hustle... to just slow down, breathe and drop into who you are and make peace with that and enjoy yourself!

Connection is key to a contented life

Sun, 31 Aug 2025 15:05:46 GMT

Connection to self, others, life itself offers safety and can provide the cornerstone of contentment and love

Whilst disconnection to self, others, life poses threat and so can cause the opposites – unhappiness and fear

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I invite you to consider when you feel your happiest and I guarantee it will be when you feel connected with yourself, connected with your loved ones, connected with the Universe.

And conversely when do you feel most unhappy? I am sure that will be when you feel disconnected from yourself, estranged from loved ones and feeling in a sense of loss from your purpose, from your place, from meaning making of your place in the Universe.

So when you feel that disconnection, we are a few breaths away from feeling connected again. I guarantee it’ll be when you’ve disappeared into your head, got distracted, discombobulated and stressed.

When we’re not connected with ourselves and with others - we’re animals at the end of the day - we can feel disconnected and stress; we move into our heads, we get distracted, we feel less than as a human being, and therefore our brains go offline and we can feel really unhappy in those states.

And yet if we simply drop back into our bodies , remember who we are, take some breaths, reconnect with ourselves, we can find ourselves again. I guarantee that any sense of unhappiness can be because we feel disconnected from ourselves, we lose a sense of self who we are, what we’re about, why we’re here, and this can create confusion, fear and a sense of loss.

Yet with a few breaths again, coming back to the body we can feel online again with our bodies, we can create that coherence between our minds and our body , we can create that sense of safety within , and that sense of connection with ourselves and others and we can quickly come back online and feel contented, at peace and settled within ourselves.

It doesn’t take much to be happy and I do believe the key to happiness is maintaining this sense of connection which generates a sense of safety which we need, especially in this day and age of distraction, discombobulation, of chaos going on out there.

So I invite you always to come back to the body, find that sense of self - that’s where our power lies, that’s where our safety lies and that’s ultimately where our happiness is generated from.

If you find change challenging, you are not alone and there are valid reasons for this

Sun, 25 May 2025 18:50:03 GMT

Change, even when we want it, can feel challenging to a nervous system whose job it is to keep us safe as the new, the unknown can represent a threat

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Change, even when we want it, can feel challenging to a nervous system whose job it is to keep us safe as the new, the unknown can represent a threat.

There may be a familiar ‘push pull’ feel to changing .

Which can feel frustrating and confusing, and generate perhaps further challenging feelings of failure, self blame and shame.

Leaning into a change process that feels safer, planned, paced, can offer a smoother journey into what we do want, whilst tempering and taming the fears, doubts and sense of regression that may present themselves along the way.

Too much change, too big a change, too fast an expansion can create contraction – the body, as life, seeks balance always; and there is a balance even in the wild pendulations between big expansions and big contractions.

So perhaps a gentler transition into change, without too much disturbance to the status quo (we still have to get up, go get life, show up, pay the bills etc) is a more compassionate, kinder way to negotiate and navigate change. A slower, more mindful dismantling of the old scaffolding . It was there all the while based on old versions of ourselves after all. And in this more conscious way, letting go of the old whilst embracing the new may offer a more integral, sustainable and overall integrative manner of expansion and growth as we move forwards in life.

I myself have been quiet for a while on social media and there’s a reason for that. I’ve been changing in the background as a human being, professionally. I’ve been taking my time with it. But it really has been challenging in some respects.

As I push towards change and implement changes in my life, there can be a pull backwards into the familiar.

For me moving forwards, moving into different practices, ways of living, choices that I’ve made for myself, I have been pulled back into old habits that I’m trying to let go of , such as the doomscrolling, such as coffee, such as chocolate, to make me feel better, to make part of me feel better.

My brain wants familiar whilst I forge ahead with the unfamiliar and that’s okay, although during that process, it can feel really, really challenging - not only to go back to old habits and trying to let go of, but equally what comes in is my inner critic, naming me, shaming me, blaming me . And that feels hard to carry as well. And in that process of course I feel very vulnerable, so I back off, and that’s also an old strategy of mine, to shrink, even though I’m trying to expand.

So there’s a huge expansion going on and then a contraction and I think that’s how change takes place really.

Change is a painful process, it’s not plain sailing, it’s not a simple linear trajectory into the future without regard for the past. We bring our pasts with us and so those old habits can die hard, and feel painful when they repeat themselves and we find ourselves repeating those.

I hope this might be helpful to some of you who watch my videos, that I’m human as well, and as I try to expand and move into a better version of myself I want to move into, I feel that familiar pull backwards and that can feel challenging.

So if you’re in that process as well of wanting to change of feeling that old familiar pull backwards, know it’s okay and I wish you well with it.

Why consider a bottom up approach to healing rather than a top down approach

Wed, 07 May 2025 14:57:53 GMT

Whilst talking therapies have a significant role in healing in their own right, we can end up inadvertently holding up our healing process by getting invested in talking ABOUT our issues rather than dealing directly WITH our issues via the body – the place of trauma

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So why is an embodied approach to healing trauma appropriate rather than talking therapies for instance?

Why a bottom up approach to healing rather than a top down approach?

It’s because trauma occurs within the body. Or rather, the trauma we experience after traumatic events is a physiological reaction to those events, that occurs over and over again.

And, the question is whether we respond in the present to situations which remind us of old traumas, or whether we react to those trauma triggers and our body reacts in exactly the same way as it did when we were originally traumatised.

So for instance, if we had a car accident and we went into contraction. Our body braced itself to manage the impact and all sorts of terrible things may have happened.

And now, many years later, decades even, when we get into a car as a passenger, say we were a passenger then, we brace ourselves; postures assume that are reminiscent of the original postures that we took on when we had the original trauma . Even below cognition, our body is reacting to getting into the car and being a passenger now, to brace itself for a repetition of the original trauma.

And talking about this in talking therapies, counselling or psychotherapy for instance may of course be helpful if we can retell our story and can make sense of it to a point.

However we can end up r etraumatising ourselves in talking therapy . We can talk about the event over and over again and in a way we strengthen the relating to that original trauma. We strengthen the neural pathways to the memory of the trauma.

We can also bypass healing our traumas through talking therapies in talking over and over again about the event and not actually dealing with the physiological process that’s occurring within us and therefore, we can end up inadvertently bypassing our healing process.

So the bottom up approach is where we deal with the trauma directly through the body.

And the aim is to change those neural pathways to the original trauma; to weaken those neural pathways and to strengthen new neural pathways relating to the original trauma in the here and now, by responding in the here and now differently, to reacting to the original traumas and getting triggered over and over again. So there’s a big difference there.

Do you pay attention to where you place your attention?

Sun, 04 May 2025 18:20:16 GMT

Distraction is everywhere! If we allow ourselves to engage like a kid in a candy shop, taking it all in with gusto, we can end up frazzled and fragmented, feeling less than safe and sound within.

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Distractions abound these days. We are pushed from pillar to post, needed in so many ways and it takes us out of ourselves continually.

We can be like a kid in a candy shop because distraction is accessible at all times and very easy as a go to, as a kind of adult soother .

I find I can be doomscrolling quite often and quite easily, and it takes me out of myself, takes away my sense of focus. It takes away my locus of control and I can feel discombobulated very quickly.

And yet, I’m the one in control of how I spend my time, where I place my energy, where I place my focus.

Being that kid in the candy shop doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to be distracted and wrenched out of ourselves.

Because it really disempowers us, disengages us; it disconnects us from ourselves, it disconnects us from our nearest and dearest.

As we connect externally, we disconnect internally. And we can feel then quite disempowered, disconnected and confused, discombobulated and it doesn’t leave us feeling very good. I’ve had to really wean myself away from my device , put my phone next door for instance for periods of time, disconnect from the Internet, from doomscrolling. And it’s left me feeling much better in and of myself.

Because as we place our focus and our locus control outside of ourselves, of course we’re disconnected and we can feel then in that disconnection unsafe . And as human beings in order to thrive, in order to feel well, we need to feel safe .

Instead as we place our focus outside of ourselves, we can i ncrease that sense of stress, the confusion, the conflict in our heads, between our heads, our minds and bodies, and we can feel disengaged and disempowered.

There’s a lot of Ds there that I’m sharing and none of them are that good or positive!

So when you find yourself disconnecting and outside of yourself and the stress is increasing, I invite you to drop into the body, come back to the body . That’s where our power lies, that’s where our agency is - to reconnect with ourselves through the breath.

And that can bring us into that sense of connection again with ourselves, sense of safety and sense of control.

While our mind can struggle to change its mind, our body offers the dynamic truth of our reality if we care to tune in and dare to trust it

Wed, 30 Apr 2025 11:51:18 GMT

Paying attention and tending to our body can pay dividends, engendering trust and allowing us to show up in life in a dynamic and flowing way rather than fixated rules and regulations made up by the mind to keep us safe and based on old paradigms that may no longer serve us

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So I’ve been unwell and had a week in bed recently with a flu type bug virus and then needed two weeks to convalesce. This is my 4th week and I feel fantastic in my 4th week.

During the two weeks of convalescing however I had the real mindbody conundrum again. My mind was frustrated I wasn’t recovering quickly enough, I was lazy, I was good for nothing; panic set in, thinking I’d never get up again, that something had gone terribly wrong.. it catastrophized about losing clients, losing money, went into real survivor states and the messages were all about survival really.

And I chose instead really to pay homage to my body, to stay close, tune into my body and notice day by day, hour by hour. moment by moment what my body needed.

And in those two weeks of convalescing I really had to dial it back. I had to stop with all my self care practices, I got up later, I needed to sleep a lot more, in between clients I would rest, I needed siestas, I got myself to bed each evening earlier than usual, and a lot had to go on a back burner.

And in all of this my mind as I said was catastrophising , but I chose to honour my body , to back my body and stick to what I’d set out to do.

And in the event, here we are in the 4th week and I feel so much better and delighted that I was able to stay true to my body on this occasion, to manage my mind and all the worry and stresses that it was coming out with, the statements, even the bullying tactics of how lazy I am I am, a good for nothing so and so, that I need to get my act together, pull myself together…

So I witnessed all of this with compassion , with love, because I understand my mind was only trying to protect me with all its strategies of doing, being, showing up. And it was panicking that I was doing differently.

And, I’m so glad I did differently! So for me on this occasion it worked and what’s come about has been a real engenderment of trust within myself that I did what I felt was right rather than what my mind wanted me to do based on old conditionings, old habits or practices or survival strategies , and instead I really paid attention and did what my body needed on this time. So, it’s worked for me this time. I feel so much better, I feel stronger, I feel ready to go about my business back to normal, and nothing terrible happened in the event, and I’m delighted that I’ve chosen this time and going forwards to back my body and feel so much better for it.

It’s only through direct embodied experience that we can make an informed decision about who we are and then really get to know ourselves

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 17:15:20 GMT

Relying upon the brain is only part of the picture and a skewed one at that, full of external influences and second hand beliefs

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So I looked out of the window this morning and it was fog right up to the house. And my brain said oh danger, danger, fog out there, perhaps we shouldn’t go. And I checked in with my body, like I explained in another post previous to this, and my body was up to the job of course. It felt fine, energised, ready for a walk and said what’s the worst that can happen, if we get out and it’s too foggy, come home, but try at least. While my brain wanted to just stay and give up and avoid it.

And here we have again a situation with the brain versus the body.

The brain is just simply a gigantic computer, full of introjections from primary caregivers, beliefs, mindsets that we pick up along the way; a fountain of knowledge, information, a great tool , a fantastic tool of course; I’m not denigrading in the least our brains.

However to know for certain, to know for ourselves, to find a sense of true self, I find it’s important to come back to the body. To drop in, to use the body as an anchor, and use it as a compass, to guide us .

Because it’s only through direct experience that we really get to know ourselves and then can make an informed decision about who we are , what we’re about, what we wish to do, what we don’t wish to do.

Otherwise if we’re relying on the brain. We go back to old beliefs, mindsets, thoughts that we’ve picked up along the way; and until we challenge those, we don’t really know for ourselves what is important to us, what our values are, and how we wish to lead our lives in accordance with those, rather than the external influences which we’ve picked up along the way.

So I invite you to have a think about that, check in with your brain, check in with your body whenever you have a decision to make and see what gives for you.

Story follows state - so focus on your body as your mind may be lagging

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 13:14:21 GMT

There can be a disparity between what’s going on in our brain to keep us safe and what’s going on in real time in our body; learning to discern the difference as to what feels true can offer surprising and helpful insights

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So I went out for my walk earlier and I’d been so looking forward to it. I’d worked all week and had three clients today and it was the end of a working week for me and I intended to do a long walk. And in the event, I had a stiff, tense back and I felt exhausted. So I set off, carried on walking, gave myself a mile and came to a fork in the roads.

I was approaching the fork in the roads where I could have come home or carried on walking and that was my decision point there.

In that time my brain had latched onto the fact that I wasn’t feeling great, that I was feeling really tired, I had no energy and I’d made a complete story and I’d changed the plans for the evening accordingly.

So when I got to the fork in the roads my brain was still invested in the story of how I’d been feeling exhausted. And yet, when I checked out with my body, I felt great! The lower back had cleared up, I felt energised and I had a choice. Whether to go home and honour my brain and the story it had made up and was invested in and had attached to . Or, tune into my body, listen to my body and honour my body.

And in the event, I carried on walking and had an extra walk. I carried on walking and really enjoyed that walk. I felt so much better for it.

My point being here, that our brains get invested in stories. Feelings are fleeting and don’t last that long, and yet our brains latch on to the feeling and create an entire story around the feeling and then get invested in the feeling and the story.

So I could have come home and listened to my brain and not felt very good. And in the event, I tuned into my body, my body knew the truth and our bodies know the truth of the matter. They are acting in the present tense. They’re not acting on the future or the past. They are very much present.

So it’s always worth checking in with our body in terms of our truths, and noticing the difference. There can be a very different story going on between what’s happening in the body in the present tense, and in the brain that is invested in a story based on information that’s old hat by the time we come to it.

So, learn to know the difference, check it out for yourself. There may be a disparity between what’s going on in your brain which is there to keep us safe of course, and what’s going on in real time in your body. And learn to know the difference and act accordingly.

How functional freeze may result in living an unlived life

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 05:56:00 GMT

Functional freeze can be a useful survival strategy when facing trauma, chronic stress and any form of overwhelm; habitualised however, it can become a sneaky way of living an unlived life

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So I mentioned functional freeze in a previous video and thought I should explain what functional freeze is.

Functional freeze is when we show up in life with a plastic fantastic smile ; where we show up going about our business on the daily, getting up, going out, going to work, coming home, going to sleep - we’re going through the motions and yet somewhere along the line, we’ve lost that sense of self , we’ve lost our aims, our dreams, our hopes, our desires somehow, because we just got on with life.

And it might happen to us all. We come into this world, and for most of us we are conditioned . We’re conditioned by our parents, we are conditioned by the church if we’re in church groups, by school, by society, by the norm, what is expected of us from our culture. And it’s subliminal mostly.

We don’t notice of course, when we are little especially. From a parent we might be conditioned to be a good girl or boy; we may be conditioned to be quiet for instance, and we get the props, we get the love when we’re quiet. Or conversely when we’re entertaining a parent perhaps, when we’re acting up and acting out and entertaining that parent.

Again it’s subliminal, it’s nobody’s fault on the whole , and yet we conform, we grow up to conform , to fit in, certainly in the schooling system in the Western world that happens of course.

And we can end up going about our business, setting up in life, studying, getting a job and then we get the house, the car, maybe the children even, we get the job, we get the mortgage, we’re in debt potentially and this is how it happens.

And we might then start to look back and think what happened , to those dreams, those ideas that I had; those talents I didn’t get to nurture and cultivate and craft.

This can manifest in many which ways.

· Mentally we can feel confused.

· Emotionally we might feel overwhelmed.

· Energetically we might feel exhausted.

· Physically we may feel in pain or have inexplicable conditions.

· Spiritually we may just feel lost, that we’ve lost our mojo, we’ve lost our way.

So if that’s you I offer somatic massage and somatic coaching to support you to come back to yourself, to get a sense of self, to do that work, that inner work in companionship with my support.

My hope for you is that you don’t look back and feel you’ve lived an unlived life.

Understanding that healing work isn’t linear can help us be more compassionate with ourselves and our process

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 19:26:17 GMT

Consider healing more of an ongoing, ever evolving journey within that if done consistently, will bear fruit over and over again

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Healing work isn’t linear unfortunately. I think we like to think in terms of our time, effort, energy, commitment that we invest, that we want that return on investment from our healing journey . And sometimes we can feel it goes backwards, it goes forwards, it stops, it goes upside down, it gets messy and we wonder what’s gone wrong. And actually nothing’s gone wrong at all.

Healing is more of a vortex. We go within, we work within, we keep going deeper and deeper, peeling away those layers of the proverbial onion , and getting to know all parts of ourselves, all aspects to ourselves, especially doing the shadow work , the parts in ourselves that we don’t particularly like, the parts of ourselves that we hide from others and that more importantly we hide from ourselves, we squash, we repress, we keep covered.

And it’s this work that’s important to do, because the more we do this work, the more we uncover and get to know ourselves deeply. So that then we’re able to go out into the world strong, complete, whole , feeling that nothing can touch us, because we know ourselves so well , so intimately, we accept all parts of ourselves.

And there’s nothing better than that, it is rewarding. Inner work is supremely rewarding , but we have to keep going and try to not get upset when we seem to think it might be failing or something’s gone wrong. Because it’s never gone wrong, it’s always worth doing.

I found a journalling practice of 30 years really supportive for me. It helps me ground in, I segregate off that sacred time to do that written work and it helps me get grounded, centred, focused . There are many ways to do this work, some people paint, other people find creative ways to do that work.

But it does take time, energy, effort, commitment and this is why I offer somatic massage - because this supports clients to grow the resilience they need to do their inner work .

So, whatever you choose, whatever practice you choose to engage with, I wish you well with it and keep on going . It’s not easy work, it’s challenging, it’s confronting, but ultimately it’s super worth doing it and I wish you all the very best.

Live your life consciously with some simple daily inner work practices

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 19:33:26 GMT

It takes time, energy, effort and commitment to do our inner work. Ultimately it’s worth it, if we wish to lead a conscious life; here are some of my simple daily practices to consider

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So I start my day with checking out what’s happening for me throughout the day coming, setting a few intentions, noting where there may be some challenges and just do a brief run through how I’m going to manage the day; preparation is everything.

At the end of my day I do an audit of how my day’s gone . And I’m careful not to go down a self recrimination route. Instead I pick out and choose to focus on all the good things that have happened throughout my day, how well I’ve handled my day, how well I’ve handled myself and it’s a lovely close to the end of the day.

A gratitude practice is also lovely - to be grateful for everything in our days at the end of the day.

Throughout the day I check in with myself and I notice when my inner critic comes online and I gently shift that energy, change my perspective and move into a place of gratitude, into a place of kindness and compassion for myself.

This takes work, inner work takes work . There’s a constant surveillance, constant checking in with the self and noting whatever happens throughout our days - not to blame, not to shame, but really to name and notice when we go into our inner critic, when we’re self flagellating and being mean to ourselves.

The opportunity there is to always flip the script and to shift again the energy into something positive. Not Pollyanna positive, not to be positive in a toxic sort of way, but a real conscious way . We can always move that perspective, change the script and be kind to ourselves; practise compassion, kindness, tenderness to ourselves, know that we’re always doing our best even when we might not be doing our best and that’s okay as well.

It’s being conscious of what's going on on the inside and changing that internal environment always to our perspective, to a better perspective for ourselves, and in that way we break paradigms, we smash paradigms, we break down the inner critic and the difficult states that we can cultivate without being aware of them.

It takes time, energy, effort and commitment to do our inner work. Ultimately it’s worth it, if we wish to lead a conscious life and take ownership of ourselves within so that our external world reflects this and we get to live on purpose.

Find yourself with a Values Audit!

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 19:33:41 GMT

Try a values audit to find yourself if you experience a loss of self or your way in life; this can bring you back to what matters to you and form the foundation of your future self

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If you have a sense of being lost in your life at the moment, that you feel a rather unanchored and don’t know yourself, and that can happen to us at any stage of our lives…. big changes can cause this and we can of course from childhood traumas come into life having a lack of sense of self, lack of identity, feeling a bit lost in the world . But equally big changes such as moving home, changing jobs, our families, our children leaving home for instance - these can all leave us with a big sense of loss, loss of identity, then know that it’s easily possible to address this.

What I found is a wonderful exercise of sitting down and writing up my values has been extremely helpful for me.

When I was in my 20s, early 30s I was very lost. I didn’t have a sense of self and I would look external from myself for the answers. I would be looking to peers, looking to media, looking to the culture, outside of myself .

And I realised in hindsight I was very much conditioned from my past and living out coping strategies that invariably were not necessarily helpful and, creating more problems for myself. Because in all of this, I was abandoning myself inadvertently; it wasn’t on purpose, I didn’t know any differently.

And so now I practise this regularly. It’s a lovely one to come to time and time again, to get a sense of self, to get a sense of anchoring and it’s simply a process of sitting down and writing out my values. What’s important to me and equally what’s not important to me. What are my values? And based on this list of values, it then becomes reflected in our lifestyle, in our life choices.

So, to return to the self time and time again and identify and ascertain what are our values is a really good practice. To gain that sense of self and to feel that anchoring in, rather than floundering and feeling pushed from pillar to post , outside of ourselves and looking for answers outside.

So I hope this is helpful. It’s a lovely practice and it’s one to return to time and time again, because we change all the time hopefully, and it’s a lovely practice to come back to ourselves and get a sense of ourselves in an ever changing world.

How to manage triggers that send us into functional freeze

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 19:43:12 GMT

We will always be triggered – that’s life. It’s how we manage the triggers in the present differently to old coping strategies that support us to do differently and to change as we wish

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I was on holiday recently and had a beautiful time and yet at the start of the holiday I got massively triggered and it sent me straight into my automatic coping strategy from my youth which was to go into functional freeze.

I had nowhere to run, I couldn’t fight my way out of the situation , very similar to way back when in my teens and so I would automatically back then, that would be my go to - to go to functional freeze .

And the same happened this time, and even with all my training, understanding, awareness around trauma, triggers, etc, nervous system regulation, this happened to me. I went into a functional freeze automatically, and it took me a while to come out of it. Because our bodies get used to it, it knows it, it’s comfortable with it, even though I understood what was happening and it wasn’t serving me particularly, but that’s what was happening for me, even in paradise !

So when clients tell me sometimes oh, they wish they could move to the other side of the world, go and live somewhere else, I often explore with them what that actually means. Because we take ourselves with us of course, we take our nervous systems, our coping strategies, our brains with us, so we can’t escape ourselves really. So, I often explore with them if that’s pure out and out escapism and that are wanting to get away from themselves really, and that’s happened to me many a time in the past.

So, back to my story being on holiday, I found what helped most as my brain wanted to just stay there and my strategy was to just immerse myself in books , like way back when I would study to manage my traumas in my youth.

I had to start moving gently and gradually and with awareness and keeping myself safe all the while, and in this way, this is how we work with our triggers. We don’t want to squash them and get angry about them and get upset about it and think that we failed in any which way.

It’s a case of recognising what’s happening, that we have been triggered. It happens so instantly, way ahead of our cognition and so it’s good to then notice what’s happening and to be okay with that trigger. However then to work with the nervous system, with our bodies, with ourselves and to start to mobilise the stuck energy if that’s where we’ve gone - into functional freeze, into fright states - and to work and to convey that message that we’re safe basically.

The spectrum is from fear to safety , from danger to safety ultimately, and so it’s moving ourselves along that ladder, along that spectrum, back into safety and almost proving to the body that we are safe, and that we’re able to mobilise and move and then go about our business in the present tense again.

So that happened to me. I hope that’s helpful as an example of what can happen when we get triggered and then what to do about it. It can take time but it’s working with the body not against the body .

Our body isn’t our enemy, it’s our friend and it’s a case of recognising what’s happened and then being compassionate, loving, caring to ourselves, moving ourselves out of those old coping strategies and supplanting these with new coping strategies , how we cope in the present, and this is how we change our physiology into safety and how we change those triggers gradually.

We will always get triggered, that’s life. It’s just how we cope with those triggers and learning new coping strategies to support us better.

How a ‘to be’ list rather than a ‘to do’ list might serve us better

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 16:33:13 GMT

If we base our wellbeing on achieving future goals, we might just be disappointed. If we are clear on how we wish to feel, chances are we can meet these needs both in the present as well as set goals that will align, creating a win-win for our present and future selves

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How is your to do list and I don’t mean by that your daily to do list of chores, shopping, cooking, cleaning etc. I mean your life to do list , your goals, your aims, your ideals.

What I find is that my to do list seems to get longer and is predicated on how I wish to feel really, and what I found is when I’ve achieved some of my outcomes in life, I haven’t felt any differently .

I’ve been hoping for instance when I’ve got qualifications to feel differently, to feel better, or if I’ve moved house, or if I’ve gone away. And I found not much has changed.

So what I’ve started to cultivate is a ‘to be’ list rather than a to do list and this to be list consists of how I’d like to feel . And I found this really helpful in many ways actually.

On the daily if I have a to be list and pursue how I’d like to feel, it connects me far more with how I’d like to be on the daily. It gives me the opportunity to assess from my existing life and lifestyle whether I can meet those feelings that I’d like to pursue, like to feel into. And it gives me the opportunity to be far more present in my existing life, rather than putting on hold almost my life and waiting for that outcome to be achieved, that goal to be reached until when then I can feel how I wish to feel.

So I wonder if you can consider that too, how you could pursue a to be list and by that I mean how you’d like to feel.

Often how you’d like to feel gives you the opportunity to really explore your values, what’s important to you, what’s not important to you.

And it gives us the opportunity then to pursue and to draw up a list of to do’s based on the to be list.

So how we’d like to feel is far more important in a way than how we’d like to do, how we want to do, what we want to do in our lives.

I have found it’s really given me the opportunity to be more present with myself , be more accountable to myself , because I’m really, really feeling into how I want to feel in my life. And, if I can achieve that from my existing way of life and whether I can just make simple tweaks, rather than basing my whole life on some future focused outcome, goal, ideal, aim that when I achieve it I don’t feel any different because I’ve not really assessed how I’d like to feel.

Are you getting hotter and not in a good way?!

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 22:17:43 GMT

As the planet heats up, we humans are heating up too due to chronic stress that is inflaming us from within

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It seems as the world heats up, we as humans are hotting up or heating up and by that I mean getting stressed out, living in permanent states of stress where our heart rate increases, where our blood pressure goes up, where we shallow breathe…

..and the ill effects of this simple fact when we’re triggered by stress and the effects on our body is a stressful response. It knocks us into the stress state, the hypervigilance whereby these things happen to us and the body produces cortisol which in turn creates inflammation in the body and increases the heat in our bodies.

We can end up with sore joints, aches, pains, tension .

Our minds are whirring , we can’t shut them down.

We feel overheated, overstressed, overburdened .

This is the ill effects of stress triggers on our body. It creates stress within the body. We shallow breathe and what that means is we’re not oxygenating our whole bodies, we’re not breathing throughout the whole body, we’re not getting the nutrient rich blood we need throughout our bodies.

In fact we’re sitting for many, many more hours a day than we used to, so our poor organs are having to work harder than ever without this nutrient rich blood, without the oxygen.

We’re not massaging our eternal organs because we’re not breathing into the belly when we shallow breathe.

When there’s so much cortisol in the body, it means we’re not producing melatonin which we need at night to help us go to sleep and often we’re waking in the night because our bodies have still got the cortisol which we didn’t burn off in the day.

So getting all the basics right is really critical at this stage in our lives and this stage in life whereby we spend a lot of time indoors, in overheated houses, overlit houses, houses full of gadgets that are heating the place up with blue light which is affecting our ability to go to sleep as well.

So we have all this going on in our supposedly modern times and it’s affecting us in every which way – physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically.

Autoimmune disease is rife these days, with chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, fibromyalgia. There’s so much around these days and the experts do say that this is due to the stress response, that were overstressed in the end and this creates inflammation in the body which is overheating us.

So when I say are you feeling hotter these days, I certainly am!

So I aim to get the basics right at least and I get out and move every single day. I cool down, I do targeted cryotherapy on myself regularly and I get out swimming in nature, in cold lakes and rivers at least twice a week, and that helps me, that soothes me, calms me down, manages my own inflamed conditions within.

So we are behoven really to support ourselves in any which way we can. And the easiest, most accessible way to turn off the stress response within our bodies, which would help us then reduce the levels of cortisol, which would enable us to breathe deeper into the belly, which would reverse and lower the raised blood pressure, that heightened heart rate and enable us to breathe deeper into the body so that we’re furnishing our bodies, nourishing and nurturing our bodies with oxygen with nutrient-rich blood is to learn how to breathe .

We can all learn how to breathe; life is awash with breathing mechanisms these days, the yogis had it right millennia ago, there are breathing exercises for all kinds of conditions, but learning how to breathe is a surefire way that we have within our gift to lower our stress levels and switch us into the beloved and welcome rest and digest state.

So if I invite you to research this, look into this, learn a few simple techniques of belly breathing, also known as diaphragmatic breathing, because it could literally extend your life .

Own your projections and take back your power!

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 19:46:33 GMT

We have no idea in truth what people might think of us - if we imagine what that might be, we are simply projecting and can end up hurting ourselves

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If you feel sometimes that your mind is whirring , and the thoughts are often moreover about what other people are thinking about you , feeling about you and invariably they’re often negative - so you might be thinking oh, so and so thinks that about me and so so think that about me - then know that these are simply projections .

The bad news is that they’re often mean thoughts that we direct to ourselves but we project onto other people and then blame the other person and then we can feel like a victim, helpless, powerless and unable to do much, and then we’re swimming in this soup of negativity and feeling unsafe perhaps and not very good about ourselves.

If we can realise that these thoughts are our own thoughts, our own mean inner critic thoughts - this is the bad news. But the good news is that we can turn that around.

We can choose differently, we can take back our power , feel empowered by changing the script, changing our mind, having a bit of a giggle at ourselves, realising that those thoughts, those projections that we put onto other people are our own. And then just changing our mind with compassion, with kindness and deciding to have more positive, kind, compassionate thoughts towards ourselves.

So when we place that externally on the outside of ourselves, those mean thoughts, we can land up feeling helpless and unable to change that situation.

Instead, if we cultivate a compassionate inner environment and notice when that mean inner critic is abound, to just change that over and be kinder to ourselves - that changes the whole internal dynamic and we bring back the focus to ourselves and we empower ourselves and can feel very differently.

So when you notice that occurring, I invite you to practise this and see what gives see what changes for you.

Avoid allowing your trauma lens to dictate your world view and steal your joy

Wed, 05 Mar 2025 17:11:28 GMT

Read below how trauma can be reframed and alchemised with the right support

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When we’ve experienced trauma in our lives we can perceive the world through a trauma lens .

And this means we can see danger where there isn’t any danger, we can experience anxiety where there’s no need to have anxiety.

This is because our nervous system is set at hypervigilance , so the brain is literally looking for evidence of danger to substantiate and back up past experiences that we’ve known and we’re used to and accustomed to.

So, if you feel you perceive danger everywhere you look, you carry inexplicable anxiety within and it frustrates you, know that there is support available.

I can help you with tools, techniques, practices. I can support you with beautiful body work to help you come back to a sense of self and start to navigate in the world feeling that you’re safe, that the world is safe and that you can trust yourself and operate in this world differently and without the anxiety, depression, negative consequences of former traumas.

As the world leading trauma expert Peter Levine quotes ' Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence. Not only can trauma be healed, but with appropriate guidance and support, it can be transformative '.

The transformative power of Inner Work

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 18:37:47 GMT

Our inner work comprises both retrospective work and future focused work to enrich our life, foster wellbeing and gift us a sense of true self and purpose

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There are various aspects to our inner work. There’s the retrospective excavational work of unpicking and unpacking our pasts, then who we are at present , working out who wish to be and taking ourselves forwards.

There’s the retrospective work and I call this excavational work because we are in a process of unpicking and unpacking our beliefs, our mindsets. Do they serve us, whose are they anyway… we are the sum total mostly of the introjections from our parents, primary caregivers, from teachers, church people if we’ve grown up in that environment.

So whoever we are now is worth excavating and doing that inner work, to work out who we are. Are the beliefs serving us that we have at the moment, are they our own beliefs or are they a sum total of everybody else’s beliefs who we’ve absorbed from as we grew up in childhood and pertinently are they serving us going forwards. Do we want to hold onto those beliefs and mindsets or do we wish to change our mind . So that’s the excavational work.

Often we have a heavy load of emotions to unburden as well from what may have happened to us in the past and there’s work to do there to make peace with our pasts , to make peace with former versions of ourselves, so that we have that inner peace of mind, body, spirit.

Then there’s the forward future looking work to do, to start to put together a version of ourselves that we wish to be going forwards. To basically put together version 2.2 or 10.2 or whichever version of yourself you’re putting together at the moment, and to enjoy that process going forwards . To decide who you wish to be, what beliefs you wish to maintain, keep. Which you wish to let go of, what mindsets you wish to adopt and nurture and cultivate, where you wish to place your precious time, energy, focus and commitment .

So I do believe that inner work comprises both aspects - the retrospective work and the future focused work, in order to get to a place where we feel that we’re happy with ourselves and contented and can move forwards in life with ease .

How can I treat myself versus how can I celebrate myself

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 19:32:19 GMT

There is a vast difference in meaning between the two statements, one predicating a helpful state, the other an unhelpful one

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The next time you find yourself asking the question “how can I treat myself”, reframe this and ask the question instead “ how can I celebrate myself ”.

There’s a vast difference in the energies of these two statements. How can I treat myself can come from a victim mentality , where we might have worked so hard, gone the extra mile, done too much in an overgiving way, in a people pleasing way, in a way that says we’re not enough, so I have to overgive and overdo and show up more, because showing up as myself isn’t enough.

In this way we can exhaust ourselves, run rings around ourselves and the question at the end of a long week of that for instance, working all week really hard, going the extra mile, can leave us exhausted, depleted, discombobulated and shattered and not knowing ourselves because we’ve pushed ourselves out of our normal area of energy levels, time levels, focus levels.

The difference between that and working at our own pace , connecting with our bodies , being in tune with ourselves and working in alignment with our mind, body, spirit is that we come from a place of abundance , from feeling enough, from feeling that showing up is great and that we’re doing everything we are doing in alignment with who we are , our energy levels, our time capacities and our focus capacities.

So the difference here is vast. Coming from a place of abundance where we say how can I celebrate myself this week and look back and reflect upon all we’ve achieved for instance and celebrate ourselves , being in connection with ourselves and attuned to ourselves and meeting our needs along the way.

Versus how can I treat myself because I’ve flogged the proverbial dead horse , I’ve worked myself to the bone and I’m feeling now a distinctive lack because I was already coming from an area of lack, place of lack and now I need to treat myself – these are very different.

Tend to your precious inner self as you would a little child

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 07:57:14 GMT

Do you handle yourself well, with kindness, attention, time, energy, commitment, focus ? Or do you abandon yourself and wonder why you have little sense of your true self and want to avoid yourself?

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So one way of relating to our internal environment, our true selves is to treat it like we would a little child.

Are we nourishing and nurturing that little child ?

Are we tending to it with the kindness, attention, time, energy, commitment, focus ? Or are we abandoning it, avoiding it, ignoring it to our peril?

So, treating our internal environment like the little child that it deserves means nourishing and nurturing it, and I don’t just meet with food, good drinks… I mean any inputs. What are the inputs, the external inputs, external influences that might predicate the state we might land in?

Say for instance listening to bad news all the time, and feeding it bad news, gossip, politics with a big P with a small P . How does that fair? How does that leave your internal little child feeling? Your internal environment? Does that stress it out does, that upset it create worry, misery, anxiety, depression?

How else might we support ourselves in this way, treating our internal environment like the little child that it is? So, nourishing it, nurturing it. Again checking out our internal thoughts. Are they negative, are they worrying, are they an inner critic, a really mean inner critic ?

So I’d invite you to think how much you nourish and nurture your internal child , your internal environment and to check and make sure that it’s positive, that it’s helpful.

Find your inner compass and way back out of functional freeze

Sun, 23 Feb 2025 18:05:49 GMT

Functional freeze is a clever survival strategy that keeps us from finding our sense of true self and living our fullest, most meaningful life

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I spoke recently about our coping strategies when we might have experienced trauma when we were young and that the very coping strategies we acquire later in our teens, early 20s, perhaps 30s, may not necessarily help us and may bring on further symptoms and challenges that we have to deal with on top of the original traumas .

I found for myself I knew something was wrong with me back in my teens and 20s, I knew I was stressed inordinately, that I didn’t trust the world , I couldn’t trust anybody else, I didn’t know myself. I knew I had disfunction in terms of my stress levels, depression levels, anxiety levels; I knew in spite of showing up - I had jobs, I had to run a home, I had a car to run, I showed up in life, I played the kind of dutiful citizen bit. But I knew something was wrong, I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t contented within, something was distinctly off.

And I realised now, most of my energy went on trying to pretend that I was okay , when I actually wasn’t. Most of my energy went on telling people I was okay, “ I’m fine ” and all my energy went on showing up being the best person I could be in my life at that time.

And now I know differently, now I understand that I had abandoned myself in so many ways, that I was disconnected.

And now I understand that I was in functional freeze , showing up in life pretending I was okay, when I really wasn’t and I understand now, I had high levels of anxiety and I suffered depression and I tried to pretend that these were all okay, that I was still fine, that I was showing up, that I had a job and that everything was okay, when really deep down it wasn’t.

There was a real mismatch between what I tried to tell my brain or what my brain tried to tell me and how I felt within, how my heart felt, how my body felt. Conversely I felt nothing in my body because I was so disconnected from my body and pretended otherwise.

So now I understand. I sourced the help I’ve needed over the last 20 years, I’ve got the help I needed, the support. I’ve employed various strategies that have been very healing for me now and wholesome and helpful, rather than the strategies I used back then which created more problems for me and generated more problems in fact.

I invite you to consider what you might need. Back then I didn’t have a clue what I needed . I was so disconnected from myself, I really couldn’t have even asked for what I needed because I didn’t have a clue…

So my invitation is to reach out, if you are looking for a guide, for support, some understanding and someone to share with what you’re going through and to support you to coming back home to yourself, creating that congruence between your mind your body, your spirit, finding your way back home , so that you can start to inhabit yourself, get to know yourself, find the anchor within that is you , and there all along waiting for you to come home to yourself.

Sometimes we need help with that, finding our inner compass and finding a way back so that we can make sense of what’s happened to us, make sense of who we are, make sense of this world, and feel a whole lot better.

So that’s my invitation - if this resonates with you at all, check out the details of the therapies that I do offer and furthermore if that resonates, I’m happy to have a chat with you and to see how I can support you.

Are you swimming in your own scarcity soup?

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 21:44:16 GMT

Operating from scarcity mode in life results in more scarcity

If I feel I have too little time, and I try to beat the clock , multitask, squeeze into my days, hours, moments all on my to do list, time eludes me.

If I feel I am not enough and that I have to do more, achieve more, become more, I effort more and still that feeling of being enough remains elusive, as there is always potentially more to do. I am never enough .

These underlying beliefs about scarcity – that I don’t have enough time and that I am not enough - actually become self fulfilling prophecies – not only do I continue to feel that scarcity of time and feeling of not being enough…

...now I am dealing with scarcity in other areas of my life such as my energy, enthusiasm, efforting .

So then I am swimming in a scarcity soup ! Short of all the above, I have manifested exactly and more of what I don’t want. Scarcity.

If I choose to believe that there is enough time and that I am enough , then so it is.

My perception and underlying beliefs dictate my reality and become the self fulfilling prophecy, whatever it is, for better or worse.

In believing there is enough time, I breathe easier, sigh in relief and I feel expansive and more at ease. The same goes for feeling I am enough. If I count my blessings over my woes, I feel wealthy .

I fulfil that prophecy and begin to enjoy the plentitude of both time and myself. From this perspective, I go about my business more with ease and feeling far less scarce!

Practise the Pause

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 15:12:57 GMT

Reverse the trend of being non committal in life and failing to back yourself up. Commit to get to know yourself deeply and learn to live on purpose

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If you have a sense that you are skimming through life , breezing along the surface, non committal , not really sure you know yourself that well, not committing to anything other than showing up for life; and going about your business on the daily, but having a sense that you don’t really understand yourself that well, you can’t trust yourself , then know you’re not alone.

I spent decades of my life in that state, being disconnected from my body, from my anchor that is my body , from a true sense of self and I was non committal in every which way, right down to the basics.

It takes practise to reverse that trend and it is entirely possible. It begins with those little daily practices of making a commitment to the small things, such as if someone offers you a tea or coffee. You might have been one of those people who said "I’m not bothered", or you were asked what would you like for dinner and you’d say "I don’t mind" and really you weren’t that bothered, you didn’t really know you , didn’t have a sense within what you fancy - the tea or the coffee or what you’d like to eat for dinner.

And it’s conversely through these little daily practices and habits - if we can change those - if we can practise the pause and just hold off on a decision such as being noncommittal about what to eat for dinner, and instead taking a few moments to tune in and see what you really would fancy eating; or choosing committing to a tea or a coffee for instance.

It's through those daily practices of committing rather than staying non-committal that we grow that internal muscle , that we grow that sense of self that we start to develop an inner knowing and from these little practices it makes it easier when it becomes a case of having to be committed to a bigger decision, when we have to make bigger decisions for ourselves in life. We will have cultivated by then an inner knowing, an inner sense of self that we can then call upon .

Always practise the pause, always take a bit of time out to tune into your body and vet and see what comes up for you.

There’s a vast difference there between encouraging, cultivating, crafting this inner knowing, this inner gnosis where we have a sense of who we are then, because we’ve been committing all along to the little daily questions and conundrums; so that when it becomes a bigger issue, we’re able then to really call upon that inner compass of ours and commit to the bigger decisions in life .

Embracing all of you - the true essence of self love

Sun, 16 Feb 2025 20:47:49 GMT

Rather than being selfish, can we reframe self love as the ultimate in selflessness – the art of cultivating such inner wisdom and awareness, that we take full ownership of ourselves so others don’t have to

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Self love . What does that conjure up for you? Does it trigger you, bemuse you, interest you at all, pique your curiosity.

Self love for me is a range of things. But what it’s not is the idea of a hot salty bath on a Saturday night, treating ourselves to whatever we feel like because we’re worth it.

This perception, this notion, this energy around feeling we’re worth it because we love ourselves for me can smack a bit of scarcity mentality , that we may not intrinsically feel that great about ourselves, so we treat ourselves with the external stuff, and there can be that energy around it of entitlement even - that we might have such a poor sense of self and self love, that we have to evidence externally this self love , and that can be quite a disparate kind of focus there on self love.

For myself, self love is more about self knowledge , knowing ourselves so intimately knowing our needs, knowing our desires, wishes, dreams and pursuing those quietly. Looking after ourselves, getting the basics right - so when we’re tired, resting; when we need to be sociable, getting out there socialising; when we’re hungry, thirsty - paying attention to those signs and signals.

So we have this deep self awareness , so that we take full responsibility of ourselves and meet our own needs, so that we’re not bleeding emotionally out there, so we’re not putting the onus of responsibility on others and expecting others to meet our needs.

This idea of self love for me is having that intimate self awareness, self understanding , self knowledge, so that then we do take responsibility for ourselves and go into the world with that quiet, confident, inner knowing and meeting our needs along the way - short term, medium term, long term aims, ideals, plans, ambitions so that we become ultimately the weaver of our own dreams rather than the dreamer of our dreams.

Finally I feel that self love is having a self discipline to make sure that all happens, so that we don’t get lost along the way. And I feel this idea around self love is the ultimate. People may think self love is selfish. However for me the ultimate act of selflessness is to have a self love of self, where as I say we take full ownership of ourselves our needs, wishes, wants, aims, ideals, and we don’t place that external from ourselves. So we show up in the world contented, getting on with our lives and for me that is self love.

Who is driving the bus of your life - your inner parent or your inner critic?

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 20:28:27 GMT

If you tick all the boxes of self care and yet still feel off, check out your inner critic who may be driving your bus

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Perhaps you tick all the boxes of self care.

Your nutrition is right, you are hydrated, doing lots of sports or movement, you take care of yourself as best as possible, you take the supplements … and still something might feel a bit off .

Perhaps it’s stress levels, so you manage and curtail your stress levels; you support yourself as best as possible and still you might feel tired, overwhelmed and stressed .

I do wonder about your self talk.

Our self-talk can be so mean, demanding, excessive ; feeling:

· we need to meet and match societal norms

· we might be off when we compare ourselves unfavourably to others on social media

· whatever we do is never enough.

And so we beat up ourselves and we have this inner dialogue that is mean spirited , demanding, quite excessive.

We might even flagellate ourselves, beat ourselves to the point of making ourselves unwell, making ourselves tired, depriving ourselves of what we really need within.

Which is a beautiful, kind, warm, compassionate, considerate parent that we may not have got in childhood , and so we may not be used to dealing with ourselves in that way.

So, whatever happened to us in childhood, the invitation as an adult is to reparent ourselves , to tend to ourselves like that little child, and to nourish and nurture ourselves mentally, emotionally as well as physically, energetically, spiritually.

And so to tend to our inner thoughts and make sure that those are really curating and cultivating an inner world that is calming, that is soothing, that is supportive of everything we wish to do in life.

Trauma can beget trauma and traumatised people can go on to traumatise

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 19:17:49 GMT

Read on or tune in as this may not be as it seems and know it is possible to heal from trauma and lead a beautiful life

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You may have heard the expression trauma begets trauma and that traumatised people go on to traumatise.

While to my knowledge, I’ve never traumatised anybody else, on purpose or inadvertently, I certainly know that I’ve re traumatised myself …. through the very coping strategies that I employed when I didn’t know any better, back in my 20s and 30s, to support myself with my original childhood traumas. I hasten to add that this was inadvertent - I didn’t know any better.

So my strategies to support myself included being a functional alcoholic, taking drugs, practising dangerous behaviours, overeating, any opportunity to avoid myself, to self abandon , to leave my body, to move into my head - that was another really good coping strategy of being a workaholic as well.

I employed these because I didn’t know any better and in the last 20 years I’ve learned better. I’ve learned how to manage my own traumas, to support myself in healthier ways and to move away from that strategy of self abandonment.

I’ve come home to myself and learned that over many years with many practices.

I share this message twofold – one, to let you know that our coping strategies can sometimes not be the best for us and that’s through no fault of our own. Until we know differently, then we can then do differently and we do the same until we do know differently; however to know that sometimes the strategies we employ to protect ourselves from traumas can create more trauma .

And secondly, to let you know that it is fully possible to recover totally from trauma. I’m still on my healing journey (our healing journey lasts a lifetime); however I’m in a fantastic place these days! I’m helping myself, I’ve helped myself monumentally, and I help others.

I help so many people with my somatic massage and with my somatic coaching practices. So if this resonates at all, if you’d like to have a conversation as to how I can help you with your traumas and support you to become the best version of yourself that you feel you may not be right now, then drop me a line and we can have a chat. I hope this has been helpful.

Are you the source of your own stress?

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 07:04:07 GMT

Not to blame or shame! We may have greater agency to manage our internal stress rather than external stress

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We all have stress to deal with in our modern, busy lives and sometimes I wonder about the source of stress - whether it’s internally or externally driven .

The source of stress is no matter when it comes to the physiology of stress - it’s all the same.

And so, my invitation is to consider where does your stress come from. External stress we may have no control over and it’s a case of damage limitation sometimes.

Internal stress however may be driven by comparisonitis , by raising our expectations for ourselves, by pushing ourselves, driving ourselves. It may come from that infernal inner critic that is constantly berating ourselves - we do have agency over this kind of stress.

And regardless of source stress has the same physiology . Broadly speaking it raises our cortisol levels which creates a condition within of stress physiology.

Physically, it can cause tension, pain and aches

Mentally it can cause overthinking and catastrophisation

Emotionally it can lead to us to feeling overwhelmed , upset, distressed with ourselves.

And in truth, there’s no escape from that internal stress until we start to consider this source of stress and take ourselves by the hands and support ourselves as we would a little child and start to tend to that internal environment.

Is that internal environment conducive to a happy, calm, contented, stress-free life or are we actually the source of our own stresses?

My invitation is to consider this, because to have a stress-free life, although it's impossible on the whole with external stresses, we can certainly create that agency and start to reparent ourselves . Notice where the source of stress is coming from and contain and manage that level of stress that is occurring within, to support ourselves to have this better life within.

We spend most of our time in this internal world and so we’re behoven really to support ourselves and to ensure that that internal world is a beautiful place to reside .

Stress less about what you aren't doing; celebrate more of what you are doing!

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 09:38:48 GMT

In all our efforting and sometimes never ‘arriving’, we can bypass the main event – the feeling different/well/better

It can be easy to get stuck on the hamster wheel of life/healing.

To get caught in the place between surviving and thriving – the rarely mentioned place I call striving.

In this place, we can be working in overdrive , to heal, to recover, to tick all the boxes of self care.

And inadvertently end up exhausted, stressed and disillusioned .

That place of healing/peace/contentment/satisfaction, whatever it is, can feel illusory and painfully out of reach, in spite of our best efforts.

Sometimes not only all the efforting can create more stress for us to contend with, but focussing on all that we might not manage to achieve can generate even more stress .

Sometimes we might forget the point – to celebrate our wins, no matter how small.

In all the efforting and sometimes never ‘arriving’ , we can bypass the main event – the feeling different/well/better.

The key missing link is to really drop into the embodiment of these celebratory feelings in order to entrench and anchor in the desired outcome .

Perhaps the aim is less about the tickbox list and focusing on all we have to do (and there is always more to do!) and more about how good it feels to reach each milestone mindfully and in an embodied way.

Avoid beating on yourself with your own thoughts!

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 13:52:44 GMT

Try the Ho oponopono mantra instead to transform negative thoughts for peace of mind and better health

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When we have mean, nasty thoughts about people and situations, the invitation is to change that energy.

We’re not actually directing negative energy towards the person or the thing as we might think we are.

A good example being when we’re driving. We might have a spot of road rage and we get angry with the drivers who are going so slowly; we might get angry with the drivers who go too fast… and we might have some nasty thoughts about those – resentful, angry, rageful thoughts .

And yet that energy goes nowhere. It stays within us. It comes right back at us.

And this is why the greats such as the Buddhist philosophy is all about forgiveness, letting go, releasing those base sentiments, feelings and thoughts that are not serving us.

Because they serve to only harm ourselves.

I found the Ho oponopono philosophy is a great one. There’s a whole philosophy around the whole Ho oponopono however there’s a simple, easy, quick mantra that I use when I find myself getting a bit annoyed, frustrated, angry and the energy simply sits within me.

And this Ho oponopono mantra goes like this - I’m sorry, please forgive me, I love you and I thank you.

I’m sorry

Please forgive me

I love you

And I thank you

And in that process we dissolve that base energy , we resolve all that negative sentiment, we can feel expansive, liberated, free, kinder, compassionate not only for the other person but more importantly for ourselves.

What are your life currencies that enable you to operate as your best self

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 18:19:37 GMT

What are your unique life currencies and how much of each of those currencies do you need to thrive well in life

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I’ve been a bit well recently and feeling incapacitated and unable to show up for my job and for my life.

It got me thinking as to what is really important to me in life - what are my personal currencies that get me through life, that help me not only to show up and operate in the best version of myself that I can be, but also to thrive .

And I realised my currencies that support me best are my energy levels , my personal energy, my time and my capacity - emotional, mental or physical.

Emotional capacity so that I feel resilient rather than overwhelmed
Mental capacity so that I feel clear rather than discombobulated
Physical capacity so that I feel strong, flexible and can move rather than in pain and debilitated

And being short of all of those last week made me realise these things are really important to me. Not necessarily money or objects or holidays, cars, houses, the usual things. Those things count to a point.

Yet without any of my personal currencies, I can the stress of this and feel the ill effects that stress has on each of those. Stress:

can put us in panic mode, making us feel that we have no time or rob us of time when we allow ourselves to get distracted in a myriad of ways
is draining of our vitality, life force and energy
can create emotional anguish, mental burnout or fatigue, physical pain, aches and illness.

A deficit in any of these currencies means we start to operate from scarcity mode and drop into survival states rather than thriving states.

This is a subjective issue with our currencies being unique to each of us, and ever changing over time . It requires us to get to know ourselves well and, to pay heed to our currencies and needs, so that we remain in credit and don’t drift into deficit states.

So I invite you to have a think about what’s important to you. What are your life currencies and how much of each of those currencies do you need to thrive well in life.

Why embodiment is so crucial in our times of overwhelm and disconnection from ourselves

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 19:44:02 GMT

We can operate from our heads in the distraction and busyness of life and have little regard for our bodies, and in this way we can self abandon and deny ourselves the very essence of being human and to inhabit a congruent internal world

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Embodiment is to live in the body, to pay attention to the body, to inhabit our bodies as we go about our business, day and night.

In this day and age we seem to be so disconnected from our bodies.

Life seems to be an ongoing process of distraction, we are available 24/7; we are busy, we are stressed, we are accountable 24/7 and in this way we can disconnect from our bodies, we can be focused on the external, on our duties and what we need to do, on our outcomes, outputs.

We can operate from our heads and have little regard for our bodies, and in this way we can self abandon .

We can just leave our bodies; we might feed them, water them, have sleep and get our rest from our sleep for our bodies and yet we may pay little regard to our bodies, what it really, really means to be human. To inhabit our bodies, fully to nourish and nurture our bodies. What might that mean, how might that feel.

In the process of living in our heads , in our minds, being busy all the time, being stressed, being preoccupied, thinking into the future, focusing on our targets, outputs, gains, our jobs, our commitments, our duties, our responsibilities, we again can abandon our bodies and live this life from the neck upwards rather than focus on anything neck down.

We do this at our peril in my opinion. To live a disembodied life, a disconnected life means that we don’t experience life to the full; we are not paying attention to what’s going on in our internal world, and this is where life really is happening, in the internal world .

And if we’re not cultivating our own backyard , nourishing, nurturing ourselves, paying attention to the body’s needs, then we can be very disconnected, disengaged from our bodies and deny this internal existence to our peril.

This can mean that we can feel quite disconnected from life itself, from others, because the quality of our connection to ourselves surely predicates the quality of the lives we lead externally and with others.

For this reason I feel embodiment, even though it has a bad press, is key to a rich life , to an embodied life, to a full life.

Every story is unique - why trauma is a personal journey beyond comparison or judgement

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 13:47:13 GMT

There can be no judgement call or comparison with trauma - it is subjective and affects each of us in very different ways

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Trauma can affect us in any number of ways and depending on our history, our childhood or experiences in life, we each will react to traumatic events in a different way .

We each have different capacities for managing traumatic events and these can play out in any number of ways such as mentally, physically, emotionally, energetically, spiritually and relationally.

Trauma is a very unique experience to each and everyone of us, depending on our past, the levels of resilience we have within us, experiences that we may have had in childhood and growing up.

And this is how a traumatic event can have a very different impact on two people who’ve been involved in the very same event.

For instance a car crash. One person could walk away from the car crash feeling absolutely fine, no after effects, no aftershocks. While the other person might be very affected by the car crash. They may experience somatic, physical after effects – pain, aches, tightness, tension, whiplash. They may experience nightmares and flashbacks.

One could say they’re having a traumatic response to the same situation where their friend may have walked away from that accident absolutely free with no issues whatsoever.

There is no judgement call with trauma.

We each have individual imprints in terms of what capacity we do have to manage different circumstances in life and so it’s important to recognise that nobody’s trauma can be compared to anybody else’s and there are no judgement calls in terms of how each of us handle traumatic events.

The main issue is noticing how events impact on us, whether it be mentally, physically, emotionally, energetically, and how we take that forwards; how we manage, and this is predicated on our level of resilience within ourselves at any given time.

So I offer somatic massage and I offer somatic coaching and I support clients who’ve experienced trauma, whether that’s a long time ago, whether that’s more recently, whether they’re still undergoing aspects of trauma in their lives. And I support clients to increase that resilience . The hallmark of good health in terms of managing trauma, traumatic events, stressful events is the level of our resilience and the greater resilience we have, the better we might be able to handle traumatic events.

Trauma irrespective of magntitude plays out in our physiology in the same way

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 10:19:17 GMT

Big T trauma or little T trauma - the defining feature of trauma is loss, irrespective of the magnitude of the trauma

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Whether you’ve experienced what might be defined as a big T trauma such as a car crash, a fire, loss of a loved one or a little T trauma which has the same effects ultimately but might be less obvious than the big T trauma which might not necessarily be a big event in your life, the defining feature of all trauma is loss.

It may be that in a car crash you lose a leg, or you may have lost a loved one.

Little T traumas are more defined by a loss of sense of self.

And the physiology of trauma is the same whatever the trauma is, whether it is a big T trauma - a car crash for instance or a little T trauma where you may have grown up in childhood and lost your sense of identity, because your love from your parents for instance was conditional and you had to prove yourself; you had to go the extra mile, you had to change yourself, as an example, to be loved, to receive love from your primary caregivers - this is very similar.

Any loss in our lives can be the definition of a trauma if it plays out in our lives and trauma can play out and manifest in many which ways such as mentally, physically, emotionally, energetically, spiritually, relationally.

Celebrate your wins no matter how small - incremental upgrades can take us far!

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 19:57:07 GMT

Rather than beating ourselves up over starting to slack on our new year resolutions, try celebrating every win, no matter how small. Embodying the joy of our wins is likely to result in more success than focussing on our perceived shortcomings

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We are well into January now and if you did set yourself New Year’s resolutions, perhaps you’re noticing after the initial flourish and enthusiasm, they’re going on the wane slightly, you’re sliding a bit and dropping the enthusiasm and reality is biting .

Once we’ve been back to work and got back into our original routines, trying to introduce new routines can feel quite tiring as well. It’s still winter and the heart of winter here in the UK with the dark mornings, the dark nights.

So if you notice those great intentions sliding slightly already, please cut yourself some slack . New habits are really hard to entrench and engrain.

I liken it to brushing my teeth . I know I’m supposed to brush my teeth really lightly and then floss, and the main focus should be on the flossing. And time and time again I noticed how I really grind down into my brushing and forget the flossing sometimes. And I laugh at myself when that happens, because I know deep down the new habits and new ways of brushing my teeth are the better ones; this is what my dentist tells me all the time.

And yet, I’m on autopilot sometimes in the morning and I just do what I’ve always done. And it does raise a chuckle in me because I think wow it just shows how ingrained old habits are. Old habits die really slowly . Especially when we’re going about our business on autopilot.

So I invite you to consider that and cut yourself some slack when you do notice your new year’s resolution – when the tinge is gone and the enthusiasm waning slightly; cut yourself some slack, have a chuckle when you notice the expectations are having to get dropped a bit because life gets in the way as well.

And rather, just tend to yourself with some compassion, some love, some appreciation for what you ARE managing to do.

And when you do what you do want to do and implement these new resolutions let’s say, really drop into how great it feels, how good it feels. Because that’s what we want to hold on to - the embodied experience of entrenching and putting into place the new habit.

And the more we focus on that, the more it will become second nature .

Embodiment is the key . How good does it feel when you are actually implementing the new practice. Just in and of itself - implementing the new practice, as well as how proud of yourself you can feel afterwards. And that will serve you well.

Get in your flow. It may extend your life!

Fri, 17 Jan 2025 18:14:57 GMT

Spending more time in the flow state can extend our lives, by reducing stress and boosting serenity - promoting our mental and emotional wellbeing in a joyful way!

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Doing something we enjoy and love to do puts us into a state of flow , where we lose self consciousness and surrender to the moment.

We move into pure presence and put pay to our often pesky thoughts that can sway our mood and create a physiology of stress that can be detrimental to our health.

Applying attention to a meaningful and purposeful activity keeps our focus in the here and now and detracts from rumination, procrastination or catastrophisation – the main contenders for depression and anxiety.

Key is this full embodied immersion – the communion of mind and body - where our physiology shifts into the all important state of nervous system regulation – the rest and digest state which increases the hallmark of good health - resilience.

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi (1990) is a classic and a great resource which I came late to even 15 years ago and even more relevant now than ever, still providing refreshing food for thought and practical applications to manage our increasing time poor, disconnected and stressful lives.

Are you living your life in the right gear for you?

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 21:47:17 GMT

Check out your unique reality - are your body and mind out of sync and working against rather than in communion with each other

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Our minds may have very different ideas about how to live our life than our body. We each have an innate pace of living true to our nature. Notice how different we all are to each other. Some meander through life quietly and at a paced manner; others operate at a faster pace.

The issue is less about the speed and more around the truth of the matter for each of us and whether we are living at the right pace for our true selves.

You may find yourself exhausted, overwhelmed, even confused – that in spite of your best efforts and the energy you give out to do, achieve, become, you feel you may never quite arrive .

If this is the case, perhaps you are living in the wrong gear to your unique, personal, true nature . Perhaps you are drumming to someone else’s beat . Working towards someone else’s vision for your life. There are many valid and intricate reasons for living in our head and avoiding our true nature.

We can get so caught up in our heads and pursuing the notion of how life should be for ourselves. Are we working under our own individual terms and conditions or someone else’s.

I find a daily audit helps me hugely to understand myself better. At the end of each day, reviewing my day; where did I operate in alignment with my mind and body ; where did my mind race ahead and disregard my body, belie its needs, exceed my own energy and other resources available to me.

Obvious signs of living out of alignment might be exhaustion, the afternoon slump, a need to pep up the tank and rev up the gear with caffeine, sugar, other stimulants.

Less obvious signs might be brain fog, low level yet chronic exhaustion and other persistent health issues that lie just below awareness (as we choose to avoid focussing on them) yet which niggle away and indicate low immunity, a sign of chronic stress.

Other signs may be a lack of sense of purpose , loss of a lust for life, a sense of just going through the motions every day, a persistent feeling of dread - that there has to be more than this.

Perhaps the issue not ‘out there’ , it’s not the job, the perceived problems, the money, the weather, the news. Perhaps you are operating in the wrong gear for your nature, going at breakneck speed through life and wearing yourself out in the process.

Our bodies are always talking to us – through sensations, feelings, emotions, aches, pains. There is always an invitation here – to tune in, slow down, pay attention, tend to.

Our minds can race ahead, focus on the prize rather than the journey, to the detriment of a good quality of life along the way. If you get a sense that your body and mind are out of sync and working against each other rather than in communion with each other, a reality check may be helpful .

Slower is not necessarily better; more to the point is knowing ourselves well enough to operate in the optimum gear for ourselves, being flexible to this as we change all the time and tending to ourselves along the way with compassion.

Self soothing or self regulation is a vital life skill that helps us with our emotional wellbeing, resilience building and ability to navigate life’s challenges better

Sun, 12 Jan 2025 19:50:00 GMT

If we haven’t learned to do this in a healthy way for ourselves, we may reach more often for an external bypass that can be short lived and short change us, increasing our life challenges to boot

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Our mind may have very different ideas about how to live our life than our body. We each have an innate pace of living true to our nature. Notice how different we all are to each other. Some meander through life quietly and at a paced manner; others operate at a faster pace.

The issue is less about the speed and more around the truth of the matter for each of us and whether we are living at the right pace for our true selves.

You may find yourself exhausted, overwhelmed, even confused – that in spite of your best efforts and the energy you give out to do, achieve, become, you feel you may never quite arrive.

If this is the case, perhaps you are living in the wrong gear to your unique, personal, true nature. Perhaps you are drumming to someone else’s beat. Working towards someone else’s vision for your life. There are many valid and intricate reasons for living in our head and avoiding our true nature.

We can get so caught up in our heads and pursuing the notion of how life should be for ourselves. Are we working under our own individual terms and conditions or someone else’s.

I find a daily audit helps me hugely to understand myself better. At the end of each day, reviewing my day; where did I operate in alignment with my mind and body; where did my mind race ahead and disregard my body, belie its needs, exceed my own energy and other resources available to me.

Obvious signs of living out of alignment might be exhaustion, the afternoon slump, a need to pep up the tank and rev up the gear with caffeine, sugar, other stimulants.

Less obvious signs might be brain fog, low level yet chronic exhaustion and other persistent health issues that lie just below awareness (as we choose to avoid focussing on them) yet which niggle away and indicate low immunity, a sign of chronic stress.

Other signs may be a lack of sense of purpose, loss of a lust for life, a sense of just going through the motions every day, a persistent feeling of dread - that there has to be more than this.

Perhaps the issue not ‘out there’, it’s not the job, the perceived problems, the money, the weather, the news. Perhaps you are operating in the wrong gear for your nature, going at breakneck speed through life and wearing yourself out in the process.

Our bodies are always talking to us – through sensations, feelings, emotions, aches, pains. There is always an invitation here – to tune in, slow down, pay attention, tend to.

Our minds can race ahead, focus on the prize rather than the journey, to the detriment of a good quality of life along the way. If you get a sense that your body and mind are out of sync and working against each other rather than in communion with each other, a reality check may be helpful.

Slower is not necessarily better; more to the point is knowing ourselves well enough to operate in the optimum gear for ourselves, being flexible to this as we change all the time and tending to ourselves along the way with compassion.

Can you let your inner child come out to play?!

Sat, 11 Jan 2025 17:33:10 GMT

Play is an integral part of our healing journey – restoring our inner spirit and enabling us to reclaim our joy

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I had a couple of client cancellations last minute today due to illness and I thought what a gift it was for me, to get out into nature, my favourite place and to play, to come out and play in this winter wonderland !

Play is such an integral part of healing .

Play involves safety, feeling confident, feeling secure and safe enough in and of ourselves.

Play involves learning how to play, and if we weren’t allowed that in childhood, then it can feel quite difficult as adults to know how to play. If we were for instance the parentified child where we had so much to pay attention to, where we had to step up and be perhaps mum or dad when we were little children, we may not have learned how to play really well.

However in our adulthood on our healing journey we get to play again. And play signifies significant healing. It signifies trust in ourselves, trust in the universe, trust in others. It signifies that confidence that can build and that ability to drop into the present tense, be present, be mindful and not be watchful, not be in that functional freeze where we’re anticipating danger all around us and where we’re going about our business perhaps in a controlling manner.

So if we can start to play it’s a really good sign, and so I invite you to think about how you might play !

I love playing in nature, getting out into the woods, getting out into the fields and roaming around, feeling quite liberated, free, expansive. I love to get creative and do my painting and explore other ways of playing and dropping into my child states, bringing forth my inner child who in childhood never really got to play.

So I invite you to think how you can bring forth your inner child if you feel safe enough to do so.

How Self Love is a discipline and a way of life

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 19:39:09 GMT

It requires living consciously, living on purpose, with intention, focus and commitment for our higher good and so the good of all ...

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On my new years eve post I spoke about self love and I wonder if that resonated with you or triggered you.

Self love for me is self care and self care takes a lot of discipline . It requires living consciously , living on purpose, with intention and focus and with commitment.

And so a few of myself care practices at the moment I’d like to share with you. Which are I get up at 6 each morning and I practise yin yoga. I’ve started to practise bodybuilding with light weight with more reps through the menopause, as I’m going through the menopause at the moment, losing muscle mass and needing to ramp up weight bearing exercise. I eat a vegan diet and I make sure to get out in nature every day.

So they’re just a few of myself care practices which for me represent self love.

Self love isn’t just about a nebulous concept that’s woo-woo and makes no sense. It’s very intentional, purposeful and I choose to lead this conscious life so that I can be the best version of myself that I can be. So that I can be the best version to serve others, to serve my clients, my family, my friends.

So that for me is self love. And so I wonder what self love means for you and how you practise it on the daily.

Do whatever it takes to get into your flow state as often as possible for optimum health

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 18:19:43 GMT

Learn of the transformative benefits of tapping into the state of flow

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Flow is the state of being where we feel connected , where we feel well within , where we are in balance and aligned , at peace and in harmony .

What better state to be in than in the flow .

And I achieve my sense of flow by the getting into the woods, going for walks, getting in nature, moving my body.

So physically I move my whole body and get the benefits of the physical health and well being.

Emotionally I feel calm, soothed, my nervous system is relaxed. I feel safe .

Energetically I generate lots of energy .

Mentally I clear out my head , calm myself.

Spiritually I feel connected , soothed, at one; I feel connected with myself, with nature, with the universe.

So this state of flow - there’s lots of books been written about this state of flow , and I try to get into this state of flow as often as I can because it’s easy to be wrenched out of it with our duties, with our to do lists, with our responsibilities.

So whatever gets you into your flow, I’d encourage you to cultivate a regular practice .

What are the benefits of being embodied

Sun, 05 Jan 2025 16:01:12 GMT

Why living embodied over living in your head gives you empowerment and agency to live your life on your terms

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So what is embodiment in fact? Embodiment is simply having awareness of what’s going on within our bodies. What state are we in internally.

Chances are most of us spend our time in our heads and that can get us into the stress state very, very easily. We can be thinking about the future, we can be pondering on the past, we can be thinking about present conundrums. However being in the head, it’s likely that we’re going to be in a stressed state .

Being in the embodied state, dropping into the body, is just about noticing what is going on; recognising that as we are embodied - in the body, we have thoughts and that we are not our thoughts .

We can get very caught up in thinking, and thinking that our thoughts are our actual selves. When really we are this embodied self. And when we have awareness of our embodied states, this brings us into our present tense and at that point in presence, we have power, we have agency to change, to direct whatever states we might be in at that given time, whether we are in a stress state.

We can bring ourselves back into presence and into embodied states where we can bring ourselves back into nervous system regulation; which means we have the opportunity to choose . Do we stay stressed, do we stay in that state of stress, or do we bring ourselves into the state of rest and digest where we feel soothed, relaxed, calm, creative .

So to be embodied is critical in this day and age to ensure that we have agency over ourselves , that we don’t allow our thoughts, our minds to run away with us and to feel out of control when we step into that paradigm of consciousness, of being in our heads more often than we might like.

So to be embodied is an opportunity to check out with ourselves really where we are at and to have that power in that moment to choose what state we would like to be in .

How Somatic Coaching transforms both your mind AND your body for lasting change

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 20:02:16 GMT

Somatic is soma, a Greek term meaning ‘of the body’. And the difference between somatic coaching and traditional coaching is the focus on your body for effective transformation.

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So traditional coaching can be about goal setting, it can be about your mindset, how you’re thinking, the quality of how you think, setting up terms and conditions for yourself, changing your mind, training your mind in certain ways using a toolbox full of good tools, NLP type tools, so neurolinguistic programming tools to change your mindset for the better for yourself.

My approach to coaching, my somatic coaching , is more to drop into the body and to befriend the body , to come home to ourselves and draw upon the wisdom of our bodies , to draw upon the innate knowledge we have within ourselves, how we are, how we should be, how we could be.

Where so often we bypass our bodies and operate from our heads only and trust in the head, that the head has all the answers, that the answers lie external from ourselves .

And in this way we can self abandon , we can bypass what’s important for ourselves, we can be operating in the wrong gear from our innate bodies and our innate body wisdom.

And so my invitation with somatic coaching is to bring you as a client back into your body, to access that amazing Information, knowledge, wellspring of intuition and wisdom that lies within each and every one of us and is bespoke and unique to each and every one of us.

So that you can then begin to live out your best life, drawing upon that internal resource , your true self, sense of true self, in order to start living on your terms and conditions rather than the brains.

If you feel ignored in this world, notice who is doing the ignoring

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 20:08:31 GMT

If you feel people don’t notice you. If you feel you have so much to offer and yet it goes unnoticed. Then just notice, who is doing the ignoring, the invalidating...it may just be you!

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Do you really honour, love, nurture, nourish yourself ?

Do do you really own yourself ?

Do you praise yourself daily?

Do you celebrate all do you have to offer and that you have to give and that you are?

Because until we do that for ourselves; until we reclaim ourselves, then nobody else will unfortunately.

Again it comes back to this fact of the matter - it’s an inside job .

How high do you hold yourself in your own self esteem ?

We may have a severe inner critic who browbeats us daily.

We may have learned this way of relating to ourselves harshly, from absorbing unconsciously the world around us as children, as we grew up.

Notice who’s voice the inner critic emulates – a stern father, a cold mother, a tough teacher…these external voices can become our own internal voice.

We may have had to crush our own voice, dampen down our truth, in order to fit in, in order to be the good girl or good boy.

It may have been dangerous to speak up and be heard, seen, validated . The safest option may have been to keep invisible, stay small and silent, deny our presence and identity.

These strategies that once served us can become endemic and deeply entrenched in us however, even though they have long outlived their use .

Notice therefore how this habituated strategy of survival can become the very prison that keeps us tethered and torn. How meanwhile we may well have gathered and garnered many skills, abilities, confidence, capacities, capabilities, talents, wisdom, knowledge, and still we might play it small, out of habit.

So if you find yourself perplexed, that in spite of your arsenal of attributes , you still feel ignored and invalidated by the world at large, notice who does the ignoring and invalidating. Is it you?! This may come as a harsh truth and one to adjust to and yet, may just be a truth to set us free.

And the more we can do this for ourselves the more that energy radiates out and then the world will start to notice us.

So. I wish you well with that - reclaim yourself and see how your world changes .

Gift yourself the act and art of self love, the ultimate resolution no matter what time of year

Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:37:41 GMT

A life grounded in self love is surely the ultimate of all resolutions - from this internal intention, focus and commitment, life flows and we get to serve life best

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So the only new year resolution I intend to commit to for 2025 is to practise and continue practising something I started this year in 2024 which is self love.

Self love may seem a nebulous, non concept really - what is self love?

However, self love for myself is intentional, is razor sharp focused, is something to commit to every single day, in every single way, in every part of my life. So, physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically, spiritually, relationally, behaviourally.

I commit to self love and what that means is to get all the basics right , to start focusing inwards and really concentrate on my needs first and foremost, and my desires, my aims my ideals, and to keep coming back to myself. Commit to myself every single day so that I’m crystal clear in what I need any given time, whether that’s hydration, nutrition, motion, relaxation, restoration, connection.

In every single area of my life I commit to focusing and using the precious resources that we all have , which is our time, our energy, our focus and our commitment and I choose to commit to myself every single day, so that I’m crystal clear on what I need each day and what I commit, what I plan to do and then I tend to my needs so that others don’t have to .

I tend to what I need, I plan out my year, my months, my weeks, my days. And I live with intention . That is self love for me. Showing up for myself every single day so that I don’t rely on others to get my needs met. And showing up for myself every single day so that I take full ownership of my needs and what I want to do in life, so that I am responsible for myself and I don’t place that onus of responsibility on anybody else.

And in this way as I commit to myself, I start to live with clarity, with expansion, with abundance rather than from a scarcity mentality and a mentality that says others need to be responsible for me or I look externally to get my needs met.

And instead, by committing to myself every day I get my needs met internally, I create internal boundaries that are very clear and so they’re not leaky boundaries.

So I’m absolutely showing up for myself every single day and in this way I can enter into the foray of life and engage with life, with others, with my plans, with my intentions absolutely crystal clearly and with focus and with commitment and so in this way, I look forward to loving myself in this way, nourishing and nurturing myself in every possible way.

Whatever constitutes your elixir of life. Do more of whatever moves you!

Sat, 28 Dec 2024 15:39:44 GMT

Learn what makes you feel better on every level and do it - consistently and regularly in manageable chunks for sustainability - make this your new year's resolution!

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So it’s a misty, murky afternoon and I’m out for my daily walk and my daily dose of nature , and for me it’s a non negotiable. Whether I’m out swimming in cold lakes and rivers, whether I’m out walking in my local woods, whether I even get out for 20-30 minutes every day, for me it’s a non negotiable .

It changes everything, it changes my physiology and therefore it changes me mentally, emotionally, energetically, spiritually, relationally, behaviorally. It changes me on every level for the better.

And so as we approach that dreaded time of year where we might start to oversubscribe to our New Year’s resolutions and expect so much from ourselves, I invite you to think about incremental upgrades . Doing this with self compassion, with focus, with a care and attention NOT to oversubscribe ourselves. And to make those gradual changes for the better, which are going to help us, which are sustainable and which help us. Rather than oversubscribing to big, huge expectations for ourselves in terms of New Year’s resolutions and then failing in the beginning even.

So for me my non negotiable is to get out in nature every day, even if I make it a 20-30 minute walk around the block. And it’s far preferable to sitting in indoors all day, especially winter where we’re in overheated rooms, rooms that are over electrified and overlit.

It can make us feel really lousy when we’re not moving our bodies. We are animals in the end. We are meant to move and for me that’s the elixir of life – movement.

So I invite you to think about your new year resolutions as the time approaches and approach these with self compassion and managing what you can do and increasing that incrementally over time, so that you stick to the plan.

And for me getting out in nature every day is my way of diffusing all of that pent up energy, stress that accumulates and aggregates when I’m indoors every day.

So even on days like this - dreary, drizzly days in the height of winter here in the northwest of England, I invite you to see if you can do the same for yourself, to get out even for 10-15 minutes and see the difference, FEEL the difference more importantly, feel those improvements on every level.

How to ensure your trauma healing is a virtuous circle of post traumatic growth rather than a vicious cycle of PTSD

Thu, 26 Dec 2024 22:16:49 GMT

Part of healing from trauma is to move from viewing life through a trauma lens and to develop the capacity for all the good stuff - joy, love, laughter, creativity... which conversely supports our resilience building...

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We look after ourselves, we nurture ourselves , we nourish ourselves , get the basics right – nutrition, hydration, motion, relaxation.

And we avoid stress as much as possible, we avoid gossip , we avoid bad news .

We cultivate an environment of joy , we lean into what brings us joy , we move towards people who bring us joy.

And we get enough rest and relaxation and nourish and nurture ourselves as if we were a little child.

This enhances our resilience and keeps stress at bay.

Resilience is the number one key for good health

Tue, 24 Dec 2024 21:12:57 GMT

And how do we grow resilience in these days of stress?

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We look after ourselves, we nurture ourselves , we nourish ourselves , get the basics right – nutrition, hydration, motion, relaxation.

And we avoid stress as much as possible, we avoid gossip , we avoid bad news .

We cultivate an environment of joy , we lean into what brings us joy , we move towards people who bring us joy.

And we get enough rest and relaxation and nourish and nurture ourselves as if we were a little child.

This enhances our resilience and keeps stress at bay.

Learn the difference between bad stress and good stress for optimum health

Sun, 22 Dec 2024 19:54:08 GMT

Different types of stress can affect us in different ways, so learning and recognising the differences is crucial for our wellbeing

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Did you realise there are different types of stress and that we actually need good stress in our lives - to get out of bed in the morning, to go and present at that meeting, to get in the car, to go to work every day, to be motivated. And this stress is called eustress and that’s the great good stress we need in our lives, and this can lead to ease.

Bad stress on the other hand, chronic stress where we can’t shut down, where we feel a surge of stress in our bodies is known as distress. And when we can’t shut down from this type of stress, we can be in a state of distress and this can lead to disease.

Not only does chronic stress age the body ( allostatic load where our internal organs and systems wear out and age faster than our actual age); it creates health issues and disease. Traumatised, abused children acquire life threatening disease and can die younger due to stress and trauma (The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, Felitti, Anda et al (May 1998).

Learn how toxic stress is on the body , and whilst we can’t avoid stress altogether, chronic stress is a silent, slow killer and needs to be countered with periods of restoration and relaxation - proper down time from the stressful triggers all around us.

Stress inflames the body and takes its toll in every which way - mentally, physically, emotionally, energetically, spiritually.

Recognising the difference between this sort of chronic stress which can be damaging and eustress which we can use as fuel to inspire, motivate and drive us is crucial for our health and wellbeing.

Take the stress out of the festive season with a plan to return to yourself as often as you need

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 20:38:24 GMT

The festive season can be triggering for various reasons and impacting us differently based upon our personal experiences, circumstances and emotions

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So Christmas and New Year can be a very triggering time for many of us, opening up space and time that we ordinarily might not have in our busy lives and allowing for reflection; remembering who is no longer with us perhaps, what was in our lives, what wasn’t; what is in our lives at present, what isn’t.

It can be a time for reflection on all the things that we don’t ordinarily get to think about. So it can be quite triggering.

It can feel like a lonely time even if we’re surrounded by people , family, loved ones.

There can be expectations that run high which can consequently create stress, tension, anxiety and disappointment .

The light is low this time of year so there can be seasonal adjustment disorder as well into the mix.

And I’d invite you therefore to have a think before the two weeks descend upon us, before family comes perhaps or doesn’t, friends, before all commitments start to manifest, and have a think about yourself. Where in all of this do you create a plan for self protection, for setting boundaries , for being able to step out of the fray once you’re in it.

It's worth having a think of little pockets of time that you can create for yourself perhaps, if family are descending, if friends are coming, if you’re going to be very sociable and have lots of people around you. Even if that’s a wonderful opportunity and you’re so looking forward to it, we still need that time out now and then, to take a breath, to catch ourselves. to come back to ourselves .

So I’d invite you to have a think over the next couple of weeks of a mitigation plan for you to put yourself at the fore, to put yourself first.

It may sound perverse as Christmas is often about others, however if you focus on your own mental wellbeing, your physical and your emotional wellbeing and have a plan in place for little exit strategies every now and then, to return back to yourself, to get grounded, to feel centred once again and feel yourself. Then that would go a long way perhaps to helping you manage the fortnight as best as you can and showing up as best as you can for others.

So whatever your Christmas and New Year look like I wish you all the very best and I hope that you’re able to put yourself first , so that you can show up for yourself as best as you can, and for others as best as you can.

My somatic coaching places ALL of you at the heart of the process for your transformation

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 17:27:00 GMT

You are centre stage, a 360 degree exploration of your needs, your dreams and desires, aims and ideals incorporating mental, physical, energetic, spiritual, emotional, relational, behavioural aspects of you.

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My style of somatic coaching is non directive .

Yes I have a whole toolkit full of practices, techniques, ways in which I can support you, to come into your true self, to drop in, to slow down, come out of your head and tune into your innate wisdom which resides within the body ; to access this sense of gnosis , knowing, your truth.

It’s my privilege to be able to hold space for that and to support you with whatever you need for you, for me to bear witness, to hear and listen in truly to what you need , to what your grievances are, to how I can help you.

And for you to really hear yourself, for you to connect with yourself, so that you can really come into a sense of who you truly are below all the noise, all the to-dos, all the commitments, all the responsibilities that we have on the daily.

So my somatic coaching affords you that opportunity to do that. I’m not here to tell you what to do, how to do it, when to do it – that would be infantilizing you .

So for me to bear witness, to listen in truly, this is my aim with somatic coaching.

Choose conscious embodiment for a fulfilling and rewarding way of life

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 16:43:17 GMT

Choosing to live embodied consciously supports us to inhabit the full spectrum of all our feelings from our experiences of being human, in the moment and without the judgements

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I spoke recently about what embodiment means for me and I spoke in terms of feeling alive, aligned, creative ; feeling at one, feeling grounded, while at the same time feeling so connected with myself and having that alignment between my mind, body, spirit, that it resulted in feeling joyous and wonderful.

And I wanted to explain what embodiment really is and that is to be in the body of course, feeling connected as I say with the mind, body, spirit. But it doesn’t exclude feeling all the feelings, feeling all sensations, feeling the whole gamut of emotions.

Indeed embodiment actually is to feel all the emotions, the ones we perceive to be difficult or tricky or bad even, as well as to feel all the good emotions.

The point is to have capacity to hold space for all emotions and actually not judge them as being bad or good. Yes we can have difficult experiences and experience therefore difficult emotions. However if we have the capacity and the resilience to hold space for all of those feelings and emotions as and when they come up - that is embodiment as well.

Embodiment is having that capacity to embrace it all, to spare the judgement calls on what all of these emotions might mean, and to embrace them and to feel them fully. Rather than to denigrade, them to send them off and squash them, deny them, repress them or distract ourselves from the emotions. That is when we pathologise emotions and that can lead to a raft of symptoms, problems health issues .

So embodiment for me is the capacity, having the resilience, growing and cultivating the resilience , to feel all the feelings, to embrace them all, to hold them as preciously as each other and to cease the abandonment of ourselves when we might drop into feeling feelings that we might judge to be bad or evil or less than good or less acceptable than we think they are.

Self relating is key to healing

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 23:02:34 GMT

Awareness is a great start to healing. Taking action is the next necessary step.

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How we talk to ourselves often reflects how we were spoken to in childhood and we carry these relating patterns with us in our bodies, we internalise the styles of relating that we received in childhood predominantly from our primary caregivers.

So do you recognise the harsh inner critic ? We all have one. Do you recognise how this might be the voice of your mother or your father?

Awareness is a great start to healing . Taking action is the next necessary step.

Once we recognise the voice and the content of that voice - how all this should, ought to’s, musts might brow beat us daily. When we realise these judgments, opinions, viewpoints might not feel congruent to our true selves, and when we realise these might belong to somebody else - that these come from a parent or a former teacher perhaps; then we have agency, then we have power, then we get to choose .

So we can choose to continue to keep on beating ourselves up or we can choose differently. We can challenge with compassion all these inner statements, views, judgments that might hurt us.

We can get to change our minds, we can decide to think and as a consequence feel differently about ourselves .

This is where healing occurs - when we recognise the patterns that we can repeat over and over again and use this recognition to do differently, to think differently independently of our former caregivers.

We may have very many homes in our lives, but the only true home is our body

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 16:12:29 GMT

So do you nourish, nurture and care for your body as this sacred vessel that carries us through life

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We may have very many homes in our lives, but the ultimate and only home we have for the duration of our entire lives is our body, is this sacred vessel which we inhabit and which we might reject, neglect, avoid, disconnect from to our peril.

How well do we cultivate, craft, care for our bodies.

How do we nourish, nurture and look after our bodies?

Or, do we spend most of our time inhabiting our heads and our minds and forgetting that we have this sacred vessel from the neck down and tend to ignore it and abuse it and avoid it ?

So are you nourishing, nurturing and caring for your body as this sacred vessel that carries us through life ?

Nervous system regulation is an intricate dance of both upregulation and downregulation

Sun, 08 Dec 2024 18:06:45 GMT

A healthy balance of both is necessary for how we feel and respond to the world around us, enabling us to respond to life's challenges in a way that feels manageable and safe

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Sometimes nervous system regulation isn’t just about getting into the rest and digest state, the peace state, the state of regulation where we’re in the safe and social, where we’re feeling calm, relaxed, soothed .

Sometimes we need to upregulate and sometimes we need to downregulate .

Up regulation is when we might be in the freeze state, where we might feel stuck and we need to move. We need to mobilise energy and need to release stuck energy and rev ourselves up so to speak and create some good stress in our bodies, to release stagnant, stuck energy and also to energise ourselves .

Down regulation is when we need to rest and come into that state of deeper relaxation. But often we might need to mobilise the energy and get rid of the stuck energy before we can downregulate.

So there are differences. The point is for our nervous systems to be flexible and to accommodate different states of being . But to always returned to a steady state in the end, so that we’re able to manage the challenges of life, so that we’re able to go into that stress state, get mobilised and to manage that and come back to a normal state of nervous system regulation.

Healing is not linear; rather it is the journey of a lifetime

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 20:44:00 GMT

This reframe can help us stress less about any final outcome and learn to trust in the process

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Healing isn’t linear. So if you’re on your path, if you’re healing, going through your healing journey, take a moment to congratulate yourself . Take a moment to stop and think how far you’ve come , rather than focusing on how far you’ve got to go and measuring it in a linear way, in a time framed way.

We can’t put time frame on how long it takes for ourselves to heal and that’s OK. However the West has picked it up and turned it into a mission, turned it into outcome focused activities to be measured, to be tracked, to be watched and observed within an inch of its life.

And this can become very, very stressful in and of itself; and we can focus more on the objectives, more on the actions, more on the to-do list and bypass the entire point of healing .

Which is to be present, to own ourselves, to reclaim our identity , to come home to ourselves and feel well in and of ourselves.

This is the point of healing, to be present with ourselves at any given time no matter what feelings are coming up or emotions are coming up.

How to tame that runaway train of a mind!

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 21:07:23 GMT

There are lots of tools and techniques that can help us tame this runaway train. Willpower and determination only take us so far, which is where embodiment comes in.

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The mind can feel like a runaway train at times.

We can feel quite out of control , unable to switch off our minds, projecting into the future and catastrophising, ruminating about the past, procrastinating in the present.

It can be difficult to shut down our minds. And there are lots of tools and techniques that can help us tame this runaway train. Willpower and determination only take us so far, which is where embodiment comes in.

Story follows state . The state of our nervous systems is key to what is going on in our minds at any given time. So, if our nervous system is regulated and we feel calm, soothed, relaxed - the thoughts that ensue from this state will be benign thoughts, kind thoughts, thoughts of self-compassion, creative thoughts. Being in a state of ease results in a calm, cool, collected mind.

Being a state of nervous system dysregulation where we are stressed, where our internal state is stressed - the ensuing thoughts will be stressful.

So when we’re thinking about how to tame and how to rein in that runaway train, think about what state you are in. How is your body . How are you feeling internally at that moment in time.

This is where we have agency. This is where we have the locus of control .

If we can soothe our nervous systems with simple embodied techniques, we can tame our minds and we can curtail that runaway train.

Focus on the fundamentals of life for a simple, healthy life

Sun, 01 Dec 2024 22:06:53 GMT

Get the basics right, working with your body not against it and see how your life improves

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As ‘animals’ our basics are:

Nutrition
Hydration
Motion
Restoration

As humans with our thinking and emotional brains, some of the following basics are also key to a healthy life:

Relaxation
Motivation
Connection
Medication

Consider these.

Nutrition

Eat your drinks and drink your food, Gandhi .
Eat a simple, clean diet, free of sugar and processed foods that is easy to digest and avoids overtaxing and toxifying your body.
Make your food your medicine .
Notice, do you eat to nourish and nurture your body and mind, or use food to numb out, stuff down feelings you fear to feel or distract yourself from.

Hydration

Drink more water ! Filtered where possible.
For every cup of tea, coffee, drink a glass of water to counter the diuretic effect of caffeine.
Avoid overhydration; no need to spend half your life on the loo and overtaxing your kidneys!

Motion

Move your body , preferably in ways that make you feel good.
No time for exercise? Can you create opportunities for movement? Crank up your favourite music and turn all the household chores into a work out - tidying your home, hoovering, cleaning windows, cooking for starters.

Relaxation

Make this intentional, enjoyable, purposeful.
Know the difference between proper embodied relaxation and zoning out.
Notice the difference between getting into a flow state and numbing out.
Learn how toxic stress is on the body , and whilst we can’t avoid stress altogether, chronic stress can be a silent, slow killer and needs to be countered with periods of rest, relaxation, proper down time.
Stress inflames the body and takes its toll in every which way - mentally, physically, emotionally, energetically, spiritually.

Restoration

Introduce daily restorative practices and cultivate a good sleep regime .
Sleep is critical for rest, repair and recovery.
Stress impedes sleep. If we are still full - with a mind that cannot shut down due to cortisol, with a body ramped up with stress chemical so it is tired but wired, with emotions that are heightened due to the state of the body and mind plus all our coping mechanisms such as denial, distraction, discounting, disconnection...so we then might stuff down all this chaos with food, drink, electronics… - how can we expect to sleep well?

Motivation

Do what moves you, inspires you and brings you joy in every area of your life.
Choose to live with intention and on purpose .
Choose a conscious life.

Connection

Meaningful connection is vital, enriching and fundamental to our overall wellbeing, though not at the cost of putting ourselves last on the list.
Do you connect to your self first and foremost to show up most authentically and to foster your true identity.
Where might you forfeit your true self in order to fit in and put others before your own unique needs and true nature.

Medication

Notice if, how and when you self medicate - with food, alcohol, drugs, mindless doom scrolling, and other forms of escapism.
What and whom are your avoiding, escaping from.
How much you feel the need to numb out and why.
Are you fully present with yourself always?
When do you abandon your body and yourself and for what reasons?
Do you flog the proverbial dead horse (yourself) and so have to go the full opposite and escape from your life of internal overwhelm, pressure and stress.
Consider " medicating" yourself naturally - through all the above, so that you don’t need chemical medications and have to then deal with their side effects and potential addictive hooks.

Not only does stress age the body ( allostatic load where our internal organs and systems wear out and age faster than our actual age); it creates health issues and disease. Traumatised, abused children acquire life threatening disease and can die younger due to stress and trauma (The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, Felitti, Anda et al (May 1998).

Consider this – stress may well be ‘out there’, though stress largely can be self induced and perpetuated. Whilst many factors lie beyond our control, we get to control what occurs within.

Make your life a virtuous circle, a dance, get in sync with and get to know your unique self so that you may flow through your one precious life .

Consider choosing wisely; getting the basics right through daily conscious choices and habits can go a long way to finding that often nebulous precious peace of mind through integrity of mind, body and spirit.

The most important relationship we’ll ever have in our lives is the one with ourselves

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 19:49:28 GMT

If we don’t feel good on the inside, we will not have a good quality of life on the outside

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If we have had trauma in our lives and let’s face it most of us have, we may not feel very well in our bodies. We may not feel at home in our bodies .

This may manifest as rejection, abandonment. We may overeat to hide our bodies. We may abuse our bodies in similar ways as we may have been abused in our childhoods.

There are many ways we can self abandon . We can neglect ourselves, we can feed ourselves the wrong sorts of foods, drink the wrong drinks, avoid activities, avoid movement; we can be distracted all the time and keep ourselves away from ourselves.

However there are ways we can manage this differently. We can stop the self abandonment. We can stop the relating to ourselves in an unhealthy way.

We may not have learned how to do this in childhood. We may have had the wrong attachments styles from our primary caregivers. We may not have received the love we needed in childhood.

And yet as adults now we can change that for the better. We can start to relate to ourselves better, we can start to nourish and nurture ourselves in ways we never had before.

Because the most important relationship we’ll ever have in our lives is the one with ourselves and if we don’t feel good on the inside we will not have a good quality of life on the outside.

Is your life based upon scarcity or abundance?

Sun, 24 Nov 2024 16:45:24 GMT

Living a life from scarcity mode means we will never have enough, feel enough, be enough

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If we’ve always operated in scarcity mode, if we’ve never had enough; if in childhood we never had enough time, enough love. If we were not valued for who we were.

If we felt we were on the hamster wheel of having to do more, achieve more, be outcome focused, output focused all our lives; and to keep on generating that energy of having to do more, deliver more, be more - we can continue and perpetuate that sense of scarcity.

Because it’s never enough, whatever we do.

Conversely we may be used to living in scarcity, so it may be okay to put ourselves last, to not have enough.

And we can get caught up in this cycle, so it’s an interesting paradigm.

If you’re coming from scarcity and you’ve always been in scarcity mode, adjusting to living in a life of abundance, feeling that you deserve more and actually allowing yourself and giving yourself permission to have more - how does that feel, that transition to living in abundance rather than scarcity?

Come home to the body

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 20:08:37 GMT

No matter where life takes us, the body is our truest home

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Come home to the body. No matter where life takes us, the body is our truest home .

It is so easy to get wrenched out of our bodies and into the whirlwind of our minds.

It is our minds that robs us of peace if we allow it to take over with a scattered brain from overthinking. It can launch us into anxiety and stress.

If we simply remember to drop into our bodies -

breathe deeply into our bellies
exhale for longer taking a few minutes to do this
shutting down any distractions as we close our eyes and go within

We can feel instantly better, soothed, grounded; that we have agency once again, that we are captains of our own ship .

So when you start to feel lost at sea in the busyness of your mind and from all the external distractions of life, recall upon this simple practice and return home to yourself.

Stress less with this simple tapping technique

Sun, 17 Nov 2024 21:04:33 GMT

Try this quick easy, accessible practice for when you start to feel overwhelmed, stressed or anxious.

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It’s a practice that works on many levels such as the lymphatic system. We’re going to be tapping the face, the neck, the shoulder area. It works on improving circulation, so bringing freshly oxygenated blood to the face and to the areas where we’re going to tap.

For the purposes of today it also works on the autonomic nervous system . It’s very soothing and can bring us from a state of stress into the rest and digest state simply by tapping.

So if you want to use this, bookmark this video and call upon it whenever you start to feel overwhelmed, stressed, anxious . And when you know the routine yourself you will know how to do it and you can use this anytime.

So we start by tapping above the collarbones. It’s known as the terminus area where the lymph returns back into the heart. Tapping gently, rhythmically, mindfully, in a comfortable position, seated, standing, cross legged on the floor.

This is an embodiment practice enabling us to drop back into our bodies when our minds are whirring, full of thoughts often difficult thoughts, when we can’t switch off, when we can’t switch off that monkey mind.

So returning to presence with this practice, dropping into the body, becoming embodied . This is where our point of power is, in the present tense, with nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to be, simply your beautiful self, in these few moments when we practise this.

So I’m tapping up and down the neck now, behind the ears, at the front of the neck, being of the windpipe not to press too hard, tapping under the chin, from the centre of the chin out behind the ears, and then on top of the chin along the jaw. Up the side of the cheeks on the masseter muscles and around the ears.

This is a beautiful mindful practice . It engages the hands and the brain. It’s not too taxing on for the brain, with the brain idling but not completely disconnected, not zoning out as if we were watching a film and zoning out. So this means there is a mind body connection .

Tapping around the eyes, a bit gentler around the eyes with delicate skin there, around the mouth, on the cheeks, temples, along the brow, up and down the forehead, back to the temples.

You can apply a bit heavier pressure on the head if that feels good, make soft fists, alternate or together; the back of the head and again we can apply more pressure, if it feels good, whatever feels good. Then down at the back of the neck and onto the shoulders, along the shoulders and tapping again back to the front of the neck, to the terminus area just above the collarbones.

And that’s it. Notice how you feel now; did you notice how you might drop into your body , begun to breathe deeper into the belly, more expansively; you might have noticed sighing and relaxation, dropping of the shoulders even though we were using the shoulders.

Notice how you feel after that short, brief exercise which switches us from the stress state into the rest and digest state. Notice how you feel now - do you feel more calm, soothed, relaxed, grounded . Is your head clearer, so less overwhelm, less stress, less anxiety.

So practise this whenever you feel that sense of overwhelm coming on, that sense of stress, and enjoy!

How we relate to ourselves predicates the quality of our lives

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 21:29:35 GMT

How is your relationship with yourself, your true self? How does it feel to be inside of you? How are your daily experiences, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep?

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Do you nourish, nurture, cultivate a beautiful rich, internal environment for yourself?

Or do you find yourself pushing yourself, with a strong inner critic that feels you never do enough, never have enough; that you have to strive, to achieve and to be outcome focused and generate outputs continually?

Do you have an internal beautiful sense of flow , sense of connection and inner harmony, so that your mind, body, spirit, your energies all align and that you live a beautiful internal life?

The quality of our internal lives, how we speak to ourselves, how we care for ourselves, is crucial; especially in this day and age where we have extraordinary demands placed upon us, where our attention is buffeted all over the place, where we are wrenched out of ourselves continually with constant distraction and constant items on the to do list, where we are available 24/7 and we have exposure to social media 24/7.

So how is your internal environment? How is your relationship with yourself? Do you put yourself first, care for yourself as you would a little child ?

Or do you find that there is a lacking within, that there’s an angry inner self , there’s a demanding inner self that expects lots from yourself; and that you sense you’re on the never never, that you never quite arrive, that you are never quite the good enough person that you strive to be, that it’s never enough whatever you seem to do.

So I invite you to have a think about how you operate within. Are you nurturing, nourishing, watering, feeding your soul, your body, your mind? Or is it a bit of a desert in there? Do you abandon yourself, are you absent from yourself?

And I ask this question because the quality of our internal environment is key and crucial to a happy, fulfilled, sustainable, healthy life.

So how is your internal environment? Do you show up for yourself or do you self abandon?

Savour the Sip!

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 20:44:45 GMT

Whatever your thing is, whatever you love to do, whatever brings you joy on the daily; a little ritual, a little practice. Savour it, drop into it and be present with it. Engage in it, focus on it 100%. Savour the sip.

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I love my coffee, my morning coffee and what I can do is make my coffee and then suddenly be answering emails, checking messages, even squeezing in a bit of washing up; doing anything in between and of those sips.

And afterwards I can hardly remember the experience of actually having drunk my favourite coffee.

So if I drop in, be present, enjoy my coffee 100%, commit to enjoying it , being with the coffee, sitting still for a few minutes, only a few minutes a day - I get to really be present with that coffee and present with the experience and remember it and savour it.

And this is mindfulness . Whatever the action is, be present with it fully engaged, committed; honour the moment, honour the experience.

If our life can be full of those little engaging experiences where we’re fully committed to whatever it is, we’ll have a much more complete, full, satisfying life that brings us joy throughout our day.

Access the healing power of your vagus nerve for managing stress and optimising your wellbeing

Sun, 10 Nov 2024 19:53:03 GMT

Please enjoy one of the simple and quick exercises outlined in "Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve” by the late Stanley Rosenberg for fast and blessed relief from stress, overwhelm and anxiety

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This is an accessible and easy technique to bring about fast and blessed relief from stress, overwhelm and anxiety, and which if practised regularly, may offer a wide range of health and wellbeing benefits.

Some of the key benefits include managing overwhelm and being able to deal with life’s challenges with resilience, feeling calmer, more grounded and centred and ultimately having agency to manage our own internal stress states.

Rosenberg explores the connection between the vagus nerve and our emotional and physical health in this classic, explaining how this crucial nerve as well as further cranial nerves help regulate our body’s stress response and raise our resilience , a crucial benefit in and buffer from our stressful and busy lives.

His style makes the complex principles of neuroscience relatable and applicable to our everyday lives.

I embrace this and other simple practices outlined in his book for a sense of calm in my body, peace of mind and connection with myself on the daily.

This is a must in your care of self toolbox for the same to manage stress, overwhelm and anxiety effectively, efficiently and naturally.

Why Embodiment matters

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 20:39:50 GMT

Return to yourself through embodiment over and over again in this world of disconnection

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This is what embodiment means for me - to feel fully alive and present in my body .

I'm doing what I really enjoy doing most at the moment, and that may change, which is to immerse myself in nature, to connect with nature, and so to connect with myself ; down time from the busyness of life, and to just throw myself literally into the reservoir and just feel alive, present, at one with myself .

It affords me the opportunity

to clear my head
to soothe and calm my emotions
to feel immersed and grounded and present
to feel my body, to feel connected with my body.

We can get so disconnected from ourselves with all the electronics and the business of life, of course.

So whatever floats your boat, whatever inspires you and enables you to feel expansive and alive and grounded at the same time - that for me is embodiment.

It affords me that opportunity to feel at one with myself, to feel aligned in my body, in my mind, in my spirit, doing what I love to do, finding my way back to what moves me and what fulfils, nurtures and nourishes me . That for me is embodiment.

I wish you to find whatever works for you and enables you that beautiful opportunity to get to get embodied within yourself as well.

Is doing too much the same as doing too little?

Mon, 04 Nov 2024 21:16:14 GMT

A common belief and prevalent ethos that the more we do, the more value we might bring to ourselves and those around us. However might doing too much in some ways mirror the effects of doing too little?

This may seem counterintuitive. After all, isn’t being busy a sign of accomplishment?

When we find ourselves constantly rushing from task to task, it can lead to overwhelm, exhaustion, and even burnout. We may be checking things off our list, but at what cost? Our mental health, relationships, and overall quality of life can often take a back seat when we operate in overdrive.

On the other hand, doing too little might feel like not engaging enough, leading to feelings of stagnation or guilt. The absence of activity can promote feelings of inadequacy or anxiety, as societal pressures push us to do more at every turn.

Both extremes can result in a lack of fulfilment and meaning in our lives. When we do too much, we risk losing sight of what truly matters to us, drowning in a sea of tasks without pausing to reflect on our true desires and needs.

Conversely, doing too little can leave us feeling unproductive and disconnected from our goals and our sense of meaning.

The challenge lies in finding a balance . It’s helpful to cultivate an awareness of our limits and to embrace a healthy cycle of activity and rest. Tuning in and listening to the whispers (or screams!) of our body is a good start. Paying heed may prove more of a challenge; our body knows the truth of its existence (when we are tired, hungry, thirsty etc), yet our mind often denies and defies our embodied truths and can push beyond our capacities.

Some pertinent questions when we start to feel out of kilter might include:

What truly brings me joy and fulfilment?
Are my current activities aligned with my values and long-term goals?
Am I allowing myself time to rest and recharge?
How can I create a sustainable rhythm between action and stillness in my life?

Rest doesn’t equate to laziness; rather, it is a necessary component of productivity. Creativity is often borne out of spacious moments when we are still and at peace.

Ultimately, recognizing that there’s a fine line between doing too much and doing too little can empower us to cultivate a healthier, more balanced lifestyle. Quality over quantity .

Can we be intentional with our precious time, energy and focus so that every action we take reflects our true self. Can we be mindful and on purpose , noticing when alignment between body, mind and soul feels alive and present. And when there is misalignment, can we take some time to take stock and seek to realign and rebalance , again and again.

Live your one precious life consciously and on purpose through embodiment

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 11:38:32 GMT

Embodiment is the gateway to living fully in the present, mindfully and intentionally, so that we can cultivate the life intended for our true self and live a life worth living

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One of the key benefits to being embodied is to feel on purpose , to live on purpose.

With the somatic massage and the somatic coaching sessions that I offer, I support clients with exercises, practices, rituals, psychoeducation and embodiment work to come back home to themselves, to get grounded, learn how to be grounded, learn how to get centred in the body .

This affords a client the opportunity to then really start to live their lives on purpose .

We can be so distracted with everything that’s going on out there in the world at the moment; social media draws us in, the news, tv etc; people stories, people’s dramas playing out all day every day, not to mention all our responsibilities and roles that we have to perform on a daily basis.

This can create a lot of discombobulation in the brain and ultimately disconnects us from our bodies , from our true innate natures and our sense of self, and so take as far away from our purpose, our sense of meaning in the world.

So I invite clients when they come to me to bring themselves back into their bodies and that’s one of the major advantages of this work, of embodiment work, in a world of chaos - to come back to oneself, to one’s true nature and to feel that embodiment, and from that, to go into the world and have a sense of living consciously , living on purpose.

Imagine having the power to manage your own internal states so that you get to choose how to live your life

Sun, 27 Oct 2024 18:56:30 GMT

Learning how to breathe well can create the optimum internal states for us to be responsive rather than reactive to life

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Mindful moments . How many of these do you allow yourself in your day?

A chance to come into presence, to notice your surroundings, to notice yourself. How do you feel?

Can you come into presence and connect through your senses to the here and now, and to yourself?

Can you take some slow deep inhalations and longer exhalations? And notice how you might feel differently now.

Belly breathing is an excellent practice to learn. One of the most accessible and quick, easy ways to manage our stress and feel back on track.

Learn how to inhale into your belly rather than your chest. Slowly and mindfully, inhale your belly like a balloon. Then allowing the air to leave slowly, deflating your belly like a balloon, for a little longer than your inhalation.

Repeat this practice for at least 5 minutes and notice how different you might feel.

Breathe in and out through the nose if possible.

Practice this throughout your day. At moments of high stress then, you will be well equipped to call upon this practice to reduce your stress.

This can be done lying down or sitting, wherever is comfortable for you.

The benefits of belly breathing are huge! To name a few.

Imagine how empowering it feels to be able to recognise when we drop into a stress state and be able to switch easily into a calm, grounded state

Imagine consciously dissolving the tension and tightness in our body

Imagine being able to oxygenate and nourish all our internal organs far more efficiently, future-proofing our wellbeing and optimising the health of our body systems

Imagine exercising and strengthening our diaphragm which in turn massages all our internal organs, improving their function and state

Imagine we have the ability to lower our blood pressure and cortisol levels as well as regulate our heart rate

Imagine connecting to ourselves easily rather than feeling disconnected and lost and reaching for external stimuli and all manner of adult soothers, to make ourselves feel better

Imagine increasing our resilience to cope with life’s challenges

Imagine how good it can feel, to enhance our self awareness, becoming the master of our own states and having agency to choose how we approach life. Simply through breathing well , we can create the optimum internal states to be responsive to life rather than reactive.

Please note the content I share is for information purposes only, and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

You have the ability to manage your stress, overwhelm and depression within you

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 21:19:52 GMT

Try Somatic Massage and Somatic Coaching with its range of tools, techniques and bodywork to empower you with stress management and to feel fabulous!

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Your body has its own way to manage these states and it’s outlined within the polyvagal theory . This explains how our nervous system responds to stress and can equally drop into calm, soothing states.

In brief, it’s like a built-in radar that helps us feel safe or alert by modulating between our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

When our body perceives stress or danger, our fight or flight mode kicks in, preparing us physically to manage this. And this is fine if we are in danger, but what if we end up chronically stressed ?

There’s a way to calm this response - enter somatic massage and somatic coaching.

Consensual soothing touch can modulate your nervous system to change your inner states for the better, as can a raft of practises that I share in my sessions for you to use on a daily basis.

By activating your vagus nerve , my bodywork, tools and techniques help shift your body from stress to relaxation.

Imagine feeling a wave of calm wash over you as you receive the support of bodywork, as well as the sense of empowerment using the practises I share.

So next time you feel stressed, consider somatic massage or somatic coaching and know that your body has a whole set of inbuilt ways to help you manage your inner states .

Embrace the power of somatic therapy and learn how your nervous system can find its peace.

You deserve to feel safe and comfortable in your body after trauma

Tue, 22 Oct 2024 21:08:14 GMT

Horrendous life events shape your biology, but you can do something about it and alter the relationship you have to your body. Bessel van der Kolk

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You may feel unsafe in your body after trauma, a sense of having no trust in your body, especially if it was the place of trauma, if things were done to your body.

You may feel you no longer trust your body and wish to avoid feeling into your body.

We can end up using all sorts of strategies to avoid being in our bodies, ranging from moving into the head, to all out disassociating and using addictive practices to avoid feeling and being present in our bodies.

Know that there are safe ways to return back into your body, to come to some sort of resolution and trust in your body.

With practices, healthy ways and strategies to support you to come home to yourself , trauma does not need to be a life sentence.

Get the basics of being human right and get your life right

Sun, 20 Oct 2024 19:53:19 GMT

If we can feed and water ourselves, move and rest well and connect often, with ourselves and to others, keeping life out there at bay whilst we focus on life within, we might fare better at being human and counter the ill effects of stress

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It’s easy to forget that we are sentient beings . We sense the world through our senses and have feelings. It’s quite easy to disappear into the mind and get caught up in the chaos of life, in the busyness of our lives and forget that we are human beings. We are animals in the end , with needs such as hunger, thirst, rest, movement - all the basics.

We can get quite disconnected from ourselves by moving into our heads and feeling that we are our minds, how we have these to do lists, this busyness that we can get caught up in, and we can easily forget that we have a body - that actually our entire universe occurs within our bodies and that therein lies our truth.

So my invitation with somatic massage and somatic coaching is to support clients to come back into their bodies, to find their sense of true selves , their true natures.

The mind is greedy and yearns for information, for sensory overload in a way, for stimulation, for interesting things; it can get caught up in the flurry of life and love it and enjoy it and yet in that process of getting caught up in the busyness of life, we can forget our needs, our basic fundamental human needs , one of which is to connect with ourselves.

And often it’s through this disconnection that we lose our sense of self and then we’re searching for a sense of some sort of connection. And it’s the very things that we get caught up in - the flurry of life, the speed of life, the discombobulation that occurs when we’re online a lot, when we’re browsing, scrolling as to how we become disconnected, first and foremost from ourselves. Then when we spend a lot of time in a virtual world, we’re disconnected from others and often that’s another thing that we’re seeking - connection with others equally, as we are human beings, we’re here to connect with others and feel part of a tribe.

So with somatic massage and with somatic coaching, this affords clients the opportunity to return to their magnificent selves , to come back into a sense of self and find that anchor that we might all need in this day and age.

Doing too much can be addictive

Thu, 17 Oct 2024 19:36:03 GMT

Overscheduling, even with the good stuff, is still overscheduling; here are some potential drivers for doing too much and worth considering on that hamsterwheel of life.

I see so many clients who are stressed, overwhelmed and overstretched. When discussing their lifestyle, it can become apparent that indeed, they have many commitments, receive little support and lead extremely busy lives.

In listening to the backstories, looking below the daily to do lists and exploring the drivers for these lifestyles and reflecting back to clients what I hear, we can start to unpick and unpack how they might be caught up in a cycle of doing too much and that this in and of itself can have addictive qualities , meaning the cycle might be difficult to break, even despite the inevitable repercussions of stress, overwhelm and lack of time for care of self, fun, joy and other activities and endeavours of meaning.

I’ve often found myself in the same predicament. Overscheduled . Even overscheduled with the ‘good stuff’, to the point the good stuff no longer feels that good!

Some common themes for doing too much and ones that have resonated with me include the following.

Living an outcome focussed life can provide copious opportunities for dopamine release and this can leave us craving to achieve and produce even more and more to feel that pleasure and reward hit; thus creating an addictive cycle, which never gets fully satiated as we seek the next activity for the same high.

Doing too much can provide a form of escapism . The busier we are, the less time, space and capacity we have to deal with potential emotional pain or unresolved issues. Whilst this might provide us with temporary relief from distressing thoughts or issues, this avoidance strategy leads us to do more and more.

Our identity and self worth may be tied up in doing – in our accomplishments, what we produce, our achievements. This pattern of finding our sense of validation and worth through doing becomes a self fulfilling prophecy in that the more we achieve, the more we feel validated only through our outputs; ergo we have no sense of self without doing and we feel we are only as good as our last gig.

Further, without doing, we may feel like a failure , or have a sense that if we stop or do less, we might fall behind or fail our own incredibly high expectations of ourselves. This fear can fuel the compulsion to do more as we strive to avoid failing to meet our own standards.

This drive for outcome focussed success takes on an addictive nature as the actual outcomes might feel hollow. It is the pursuit of success that becomes the addiction when the achievement fails to deliver on the actual underlying yearning or need of a sense of internal validation, purpose or meaning.

Over time, overdoing can simply become a way of life, a habit and routine that feels difficult to break . The structure and predictability can offer a sense of safety and comfort, where change then becomes challenging.

It is worth noting that doing too much seems to have become a socially acceptable, even celebrated way of life. Wearing stress like a badge of honour has become commonplace and glorified. Equally in the face of social media, we may feel pressured to keep up with others and get caught up in the relentless trap of comparisonitis.

Finding our place, a sense of ourselves and staying true to ourselves whilst keeping grounded can feel challenging amidst the onslaught of societal norms and expectations and exposure to social media and live streaming news, never mind navigating our daily lives.

Applying awareness on a regular basis to the signs and signals of doing too much is a good starting point to seeking to bring in a healthier balance between productivity and doing too much . Taking a deeper dive as to potential underlying drivers of overdoing life is equally valid in getting to know ourselves better and finding our own unique and personal pace of life to living a healthier and more harmonious life.

Self Care is Care of Self

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 20:37:56 GMT

Self Care receives bad press. Yet what if we rephrase this to be Care of Self? How does that land with you?

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Self care can receive bad press. We conjure up ideas of nice salty, hot baths and thick luxurious chocolates etc, but does it really mean, self care?

What if we rephrase it and call it care of self ? How does that land? Does that mean any different?

Care of self in every which way is critical really and I mean the fundamentals of care of self.

Physically - how well do you really feel? Are you tired yet wired ?

Mentally - are you in overwhelm? Are you feeling stressed all the time ?

Emotionally – do you get easily anxious or overwhelmed ? Do you feel quite upset and distressed easily?

Energetically - how are your energy levels?

Spiritually - do you feel you’re on your path, your unique path ?

As women in particular, we tend to care for others; it’s in our biology, in our DNA, and we can put ourselves last. And yet care of self is fundamental to showing up in the world, in our lives, as best as we can, as the best version of ourselves that we can.

So I invite you to consider self care and reframe it as care of self and ponder on this - how well do you care for yourself?

Are you mindful or is your mind full?

Sun, 13 Oct 2024 14:02:45 GMT

Live a conscious life by paying closer attention to your embodied self

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When I’m mindful I’m present I’m in my body, I’m paying attention to what’s going in my external world as well as inside; this is known as interoception .

I am mindfully present with everything I’m doing and I am conscious of my choices that I make.

If I notice that I’m dropping into a stress state, I move myself out of it. I change my physiology and I choose. I am consciously living; I am living a conscious, embodied life .

When my mind is full I am absent from myself and my life. I am not present in the moment and I can feel abandoned and devoid of myself. I’ve noticed recently I can start to have little accidents because I’m not paying attention to my presence , to my embodied, lived experience.

So are you living a mindful life or a mind full, a life with a mind full? Are you present with yourself and engaging in your presence or are you absent from yourself and missing out on the best parts of your life?

Make your life a Meditation in Motion

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 20:04:12 GMT

Use the mundane moments in your life to practise meditation in motion to feel expansive and grounded, present and fulfilled

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I know for myself and many of my clients, we don’t have time to settle down and do a formal type of meditation every evening. I seek the most efficient and effective way to do the same, by incorporating meditations in motion into my seemingly mindless activities throughout the day, in the mundane activities, such as washing up the dishes, the clothes, the laundry, in hoovering, in taking a shower in the morning first thing.

And so I practise mindfulness and really get myself absorbed in the very activity I’m doing, taking note, noticing how my body feels, if I’m embodied, where my mind drifts and where it takes away and then takes me down rabbit holes sometimes. And I bring myself back gently into the moment and practise mindfulness, full immersion in the moment, fully embodied and fully present .

And I find this gives me glimmers throughout my day, affords me the opportunity to really be present with what is, and creates that lovely expansive feeling in my body and that lovely escape from my monkey chatter.

So I practise meditation in motion throughout the mundane moments of my life and this works for me!

Make your Micromoments Matter!

Tue, 08 Oct 2024 15:49:30 GMT

Make your life a meditation in motion!

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If we aren’t mindful of the very micromoments of our life, I believe we miss out on the very nourishment and nurturance of ourselves that we need to have a fulfilling, mindful life .

If we’re absent from those micromoments, we can seek external gratification and satisfaction and that nourishment and nurturance externally through addictive tendencies and practices.

So I try to make every moment in my life a meditation in motion .

I try to be fully present and mindful of how I’m feeling, mindful of what I’m doing.

I choose wisely and to stay close to myself so I seek this nourishment and nurturance for myself from within and I try to make every micromoment matter.

Story follows State

Sun, 06 Oct 2024 18:34:53 GMT

Check out your inner world (interoception), and shift your internal physiology to change your mind

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Interoception is inner noticing - the most empowering action we can take when feeling overwhelm and anxiety as we are then able to act upon this.

Focus on the state not the story.

When our minds are running wild and we’re trying to shut down the monkey mind, the endless chatter, the relentless conversations we might have over and over in our minds, think about dropping into the body instead of trying to tame that mind or change that mind.

Our power lies within our physiology . If we can notice then change the physiology, we get to change our mind.

So focus more on what’s going on in your body. Check in with yourself - it might be quite a strange thing to do.

Check what feelings bubbling in your body, where you might feel tension, tightness, soreness, aches, pains. Where you might have flighty energy that you need to release and let go of. Harness this, focus on this.

Shift the physiology and your mind will change.

Nurturing and Nourishing touch therapy for reducing your stress and raising your resilience

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 18:32:20 GMT

Whilst we can’t avoid stress, we can learn to manage the ill effects of chronic stress on our body, mind and spirit in healthy and holistic ways with care of self practices such as regular bodywork

Take a moment to watch this most brief video. Really feel into it, how it might be for you to be receiving such a treatment. Really allow yourself to drop in and imagine. Notice what happens in your body – a slower breath, drop of the shoulders, a stillness within that lands as you might start to feel ease .

Some of my clients receive a full hour and more of this and feel incredible . As they land in their body, give over to the embodied experience, let their mind’s incessant chatter melt away, give themselves permission to be fully present and to receive nurturing and nourishing touch therapy.

This is a truly healing experience that benefits our mind, body, spirit in so many ways.

Of note is that in these times of overwhelm, taking such time out to immerse ourselves in presence, with nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to be but be fully in the moment, can support us to build our resilience – the cornerstone of good health.

As our stress levels rise and become persistent, we might learn to live with chronic stress at our peril, as this is at the cost of lowering levels of resilience which in turn plays havoc with our health and wellbeing in the short and longer term.

In order to thrive, let alone strive or even survive in our fast paced, overscheduled lives, we owe it to ourselves to recognise the cost of stress. Whilst we can’t avoid it, and stress to a degree is a positive motivator and stimulant in our lives, we can learn to manage the ill effects of chronic stress on our body, mind and spirit in a healthy and holistic way with care of self practices such as regular bodywork.

How Embodied Therapies can support you to navigate the complexities of life

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 18:18:13 GMT

My embodiment therapies can help you on your transformative path towards rediscovering the profound unity of your mind, body and spirit

As you navigate the complexities of daily life, it's easy to lose touch with the wisdom that resides within you .

I offer a validating, nurturing and supportive space for you to unravel layers of emotions, release tensions held in your body, and nurture the roots of your inner strength.

My offer is to support and guide you back to the essence of your true self.

Whether you seek solace from the chaos, yearn for deeper self-understanding, or crave a sense of groundedness in the present moment, may I accompany you to walk your unique pathway to self-discovery and embrace the fullness and reap the benefits of your embodied experience.

My wish is to guide you back to the essence of your being, helping you reclaim a sense of wholeness and vitality and purpose.

Call, email or text me to book in for your complimentary discovery call to chat about how I can help you.

Move your body, change your mind, improve your world

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 20:10:37 GMT

Change your physiology to change your life, even with micromoments of movement

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Even on misty, murky mornings it’s still preferable to be out and about, moving my body, getting embodied , dropping in and receiving the abundance that is nature even in the rain!

I find this more preferable than sitting at my PC, on my laptop, on my phone doomscrolling , getting upset and discombobulated, trying to manage my brainfog. This dispels it! Being out in nature, moving and feeling immersed, feeling at one, feeling embodied, alive, vibrant and full of life.

I am grateful when I can get myself out and immerse myself in nature and feel that inner peace, inner harmony and feeling at one with myself. There’s no greater feeling!

We are sentient beings, made to move! Whilst I can let myself get into those stuck state of stress easily – of either hyper or hypo vigilance – where I can feel disempowered, disconnected, discombobulated …

I remind myself I have agency and with little daily practices, micromoments of movement, I can shift my physiology back into better states of feeling empowered, connected and expansive.

The Paradox of Practising the Art of Being!

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 07:46:12 GMT

Do you schedule time to just BE?

I find if I don't add a practice of being to my To Do list, it doesnt 'get done'!

It takes time and commitment to be. To take time out from the never ending to do list of life .

It can trigger a whole raft of challenging thoughts and beliefs, never mind the conundrum of 'if I take time out to do nothing, nothing gets done'.

Guilt, fear, frustration might be the usual suspects. Beyond this, even confusion. If we are not used to doing nothing, how do we even drop into just being 'successfully', so - intentionally, free of self recrimination and self censorship.

It takes practise! Can you challenge your beliefs and reframe your notion of being and allow yourself this ritual. Can you recognise it as a necessity rather than a luxury . A practice that will serve well on every level - mentally, emotionally, energetically.

A practice that can in fact save us time if done well in the final analysis, well worth cultivating. One that can leave us feeling expansive, creative, refreshed, energised and able to manage our overscheduled lives with fresh eyes and better perspective. One that contributes to living a conscious life .

Somatic Massage for safe healing

Sat, 14 Sep 2024 07:48:27 GMT

The cornerstone of healing is safety

Somatic massage offers a beautiful medium for safe healing , encompassing

* compassion

* co regulation

* connection

* care

* collaboration

* client led approach

* calming

All this is communicated to the nervous system mainly non verbally through the medium of consensual touch.

Words are not enough for our nervous system to feel safe . It needs to feel safe directly through the senses.

This accounts for the success of embodied healing.

We need to feel to heal

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 20:48:37 GMT

To heal we need to slow right down, to move from our mind and drop into the body

This may feel scary and the antithesis to what our mind is telling us, particularly if we have experienced trauma in the body. Indeed we may feel unsafe in the body and so camp out in the mind .

Through connection with another supportive human being, through co-regulation and leaning initially on their regulated nervous system if we are unable to regulate our own, we may come to learn to feel safe in our own body.

Thus expanding our window of tolerance, growing our resilience and coming to self regulate our own nervous system. Thus breaking the cycle of trauma triggering. Thus coming to feel safe at home within ourself. This is how Somatic Massage can support.

Dont let self development become another hard task master

Mon, 09 Sep 2024 06:47:51 GMT

Whilst self development is laudible, it can quickly become yet another item on the already long to do list and weigh heavy and become yet another source of self flagellation

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Try not to let self development become yet another stick with which to beat yourself up.

There's always going to be another podcast, another book, another course, another guru… Instead come back to what is true for you, what brings you joy, what motivates you, what makes you feel alive and embodied.

For me, getting out in nature enables me to drop in and get grounded. To come back to myself and realise what's really important to me, which is being embodied, feeling nourished and nurtured.

This keeps me away from that dreaded monkey mind which really discombobulates me, confuses me and gives me brain fog.

Avoid the hamster wheel of self development and self flagellation ! We can end up in the never never land – of never arriving, of never feeling good enough. Instead, how about we practice self acceptance and make this a big part of our self development project. Choosing to do more of what we love. Surely this is the ticket, the golden ticket and ultimate purpose of all self development.

Claim your Free copy of my acclaimed E Book today

Sun, 01 Sep 2024 16:07:15 GMT

Join my Embodied Therapies Community today and receive my ebooklet on Somatic Massage totally free.

Find out if and how you might be affected by trauma and chronic stress in this comprehensive resource and how Somatic Massage can help you with your symptoms.

My ebooklet explains how and why we are all potentially affected by this and the types of symptoms we might experience, as well as how this therapy can support us to reduce stress and trauma and expand our resilience, the key to good health.

I have been practising this therapy now for 5 years and helped hundreds of clients presenting with wide ranging needs. I hope you may find this helpful both for yourself and in your own work if you see clients.

Trauma is not stored in the body in a physical sense, such as in the muscles and bones. However the physiology of trauma is imprinted in our nervous system and reactivated every time a situation occurs which reminds us of the original traumas. The memory of trauma is held in the memory and emotional centres of the brain. The body is activated into needing to protect from threats – either perceived or real. It is this activation that can create a whole raft of symptoms that are no longer helpful for us and can hinder the quality of our lives.

Somatic Massage works to weaken these neural pathways that trigger the stress response and strengthen new neural pathways of safety. Through increasing our felt sense of safety, we increase our resilience, capacity and agency – the hallmarks of wellbeing . In this way, we can counter situations which may be reminiscent of trauma differently and better for ourselves going forwards.

VIDEO: Get into your body to tame your mind

Sun, 25 Aug 2024 20:54:05 GMT

If we want to manage the content our minds, then all the effort to do so through mind practices and self talk techniques can yield limited results.

Have you noticed how, with the best will in the world, you might try to control your thoughts with little success. Willpower and determination only get us so far.

Key to managing our thoughts is through the body. The internal states we operate in, largely unconsciously, ‘drive the bus’ – these form the foundation of the quality of thoughts we may have.

So, in order to tame our minds and shift our thoughts from say stressful ones to benign ones, getting into a good internal state of feeling with simple somatic practices can yield far quicker outcomes for the state of our mind.

This is where our agency lies to truly change or tame our minds.

Story follows State – Dr Deb Dana’s simple yet profound concept from Dr Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory stipulates that our thoughts and the stories we tell ourselves are dependent upon the nervous system we happen to be in. Connecting to and changing our internal state therefore can change our minds for the better.

Know thy embodied self in order to manage your mind for your greatest good!

VIDEO: Leave your Mind Behind with my complimentary Somatic Meditation

Sun, 11 Aug 2024 21:59:14 GMT

Leave your mind behind for a few minutes.

Drop into your body with my complimentary somatic meditation – a full body scan, using your body as your anchor to become fully present, mindful and aware of how, where and perhaps why you may hold tension in your body.

Enjoy!

VIDEO: We get to choose - either a vicious cycle of stress or a virtuous circle of peace

Thu, 16 Nov 2023 08:20:10 GMT

Can you cultivate a rest state within by staying present, focusing on what is, noticing the difference between the stressful internal chatter and the actual state of your present peaceful reality.

Come into presence and get anchored in the here and now, within the body. The mind takes us away from our body and truth – that all we have really is the here and now.

We get to choose - either a vicious cycle of stress or a virtuous circle of peace.

VIDEO: Imagine Life without Procrastination, Rumination and Catastrophisation!

Thu, 16 Nov 2023 08:09:14 GMT

For me, the only true way to leave that monkey mind, to leave the procrastination, the rumination, the catastrophization of our mind is to come into the body.

This is my truth, when I come home to myself and drop into my body; this is the fact of the matter - right now I am ensconced in nature, I can hear the babbling brook, I can feel the beautiful warm air on my skin, I feel expansive, free, liberated; I’m moving my body and I feel well.

I’m breathing deeply, oxygenating my whole body with freshly oxygenated, nutrient-rich blood and getting out of breath. I feel fantastic. That is my truth in the here and now.

If I choose to stay in my mind, I can get very stressed and generate an entire stress state in my body. When I choose to drop into the body and stay present with what it is, my truth at this very moment, I get to experience something wonderful.

VIDEO: How do you remain embodied and cease the self abandonment?

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 16:14:20 GMT

There are so many ways we self abandon. And one way to stop ourselves from doing this is to commit to self care with our time, intention, attunement, focus.

In this way we replenish ourselves, fill our boots in whatever way moves us, inspires us, enables us to feel alive!

Embodiment is to be at home in the body, to stay true to ourselves versus self abandonment.

In remaining embodied, we are present to what is, to life in that very moment, rather than drifting off into the future or past.

It is here that we can fully and completely experience life, tuning into all our senses and feeling every sensation.

I find myself in nature, immersed in nature. Over and over again. I come home to myself.

How do you remain embodied and cease the self abandonment?

VIDEO: Is this serving me?

Tue, 07 Nov 2023 07:46:28 GMT

This season I’m letting go; letting go of thoughts, mindsets, beliefs that no longer serve me.

I’m decluttering, clearing out – physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically and spiritually.

Creating space, for expansion, for allowing new beliefs, mindsets, thoughts and new feelings come in.

I’m clearing the decks and every day I ask the question “is this serving me?” - is this thought, this mindset serving me, and if the answer is no, I let it go - with grace, with love, with compassion and I create expansion in my body, space in my mind; I create and grow and nurture resilience to support me to go forth.

VIDEO: There is enough time!

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 08:18:19 GMT

There is enough time!

Try this as a mantra to yourself to soothe your nervous system and return to steady state.

This together with belly breathing and extending the exhalation is a quick, easy way to get out of the stress state and into the rest state.

VIDEO: Our mind can be our best friend or our worst enemy!

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 08:34:46 GMT

Our mind can be our best friend or our worst enemy!

We get to choose. What we focus on grows, amplifies, so be careful what you think about!

We have agency, when we can catch our thoughts, recognise that it’s our thoughts that determine how we feel inside and we can challenge or gently be curious about these thoughts and instead attune to what’s going on in the here and now, in the body.

This is our reality, what’s really happening in the here and now, in our body.

So when we drop into the body, breathe into the belly, exhale for longer than we inhale, ground ourselves - then we can come into the here and now and recognise what is true for ourselves in the here and now; are we safe in the here and now, or have our feelings been running amok and creating the physiology of stress rather than rest.

When we come into the body, come into our truth - we can come to that beautiful state of rest instead.

VIDEO: Anchor into your body - to find your refuge, safety and wellbeing

Thu, 26 Oct 2023 07:41:40 GMT

How safe and soothed do you feel in your mind right now?

Ask the question about your body. How safe and soothed do you feel in your body right now?

You might notice a vast difference.

Notice how the mind takes us away from the present tense and your place of safety, with its constant chatter and disappearing into the past or future, into the dramas of daily life.

Drop into that safe space of your body in the here and now instead.

Anchor into your body - to find your refuge, safety, wellbeing.

VIDEO: our thoughts drive our physiology and our physiology drives our thoughts

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 11:38:59 GMT

We can be in a vicious cycle of stress or virtuous circle of rest.

So what we focus on grows, so be mindful what you think about.

Are you creating that stress state in your body or are you focusing on generating that beautiful rest and digest state, producing beautiful endorphins in the body, helping us feel better, feel well, feel grounded, connected to ourselves, connected to others, connected to nature.

I encourage you to be mindful of your thoughts and where they take you.

VIDEO: Mindful Moments - the Elixir of Life!

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 07:00:46 GMT

MINDFUL MOMENTS….How many of these do you allow yourself in your day?

A chance to come into presence.

To notice your surroundings.

To notice yourself.

How do you feel.

Can you come into presence and connect through your senses to the here and now and to yourself.

Can you take some slow deep inhalations and longer exhalations.

Then notice how you might feel differently now.

I so hope you feel better for and coming into your present reality and for returning to your true self.

VIDEO: Stay close to yourself and the present for greater agency

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 07:09:49 GMT

By choosing to come into my body and the present moment, I get to nourish and nurture myself and replenish my spirit. In doing so my resilience increases so that, as and when challenges arise, I am better placed to deal with them. I generate a better foundation for my future self in choosing to stay close to myself and be present.

VIDEO: Can you hold space for ALL your feelings?

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 06:51:40 GMT

Can you hold the space for the challenging thoughts, the ruminations and catastrophisations of your mind and the tension and restrictions these create in your body - AS WELL AS noticing - how you feel truly in your body right now.

Can you come into the present moment, find space in your body, areas of expansion and a sense of wellbeing? Notice these areas, breathe into them, allow those feelings of wellbeing to expand and may you come to realise and more importantly feel, we are safe, in our body, in the here and now. We can hold space for all of our feelings.

VIDEO: No Knight in Shining Armour is coming!

Tue, 10 Oct 2023 07:35:44 GMT

Rescue yourself – reparent yourself! No Knight in Shining Armour is coming!

This might mean another person, a cup of coffee, chocolate, food whatever our go-to’s have been in the past, whatever our crutches have been to rescue us from those states of being and feeling.

We can do this and feel empowered and potent in choosing differently and doing differently and shifting that physiology from that awful flat state to the feeling of wellbeing, a feeling of self validation and that empowerment, through doing that for ourselves, that’s how we break that cycle of abandoning ourselves and instead relating to ourselves in a beautiful way, in a way that validates us, validates all those inner parts of us from the past.

And they can get to see that we choose differently now, we reparent ourselves, we take ourselves by the hand and take ourselves forwards into a new paradigm, a new way of being, a new way of feeling, thinking, believing and so behaving and acting.

VIDEO: when you get that sinking feeling, take yourself by the hand..and change your physiology!

Fri, 06 Oct 2023 06:55:48 GMT

We can get stuck in that physiology, a feeling flat, a feeling nothing’s happening, of breathlessness, of feeling in limbo land and instead choose differently this time.

Choose to move, to get out in nature, to do something differently, to dance widely around the kitchen, anything that changes that physiology. After you’ve acknowledged what’s going on, you’ve acknowledged that you’re in that stress loop, that stress cycle.

It is low level stress, chronic stress which we can create for ourselves by thinking that way and instead, honour ourselves enough to take ourselves by the hand, take ourselves out of that state we’re in and choose differently, choose better for ourselves.

And in that process we break the cycle, we break those old patterns of relating to ourselves, of abandoning ourselves in fact and instead we can relate better to ourselves, we can rescue ourselves.

VIDEO: Break the Cycle of never feeling Good Enough

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 06:50:54 GMT

If we can reverse that process of getting caught up in a stress loop, catch it in the here and now and realise what’s going on that, this is an old habit playing out and plays out in many manifestations in many ways.

But to catch it at that point and to just stop to breathe, to be, to drop into that state and practice self compassion then. That is when we need it the most, to break the cycle, recognise what’s happening and choose differently, choose to stop the self recrimination and beating ourselves up.

Instead to lavish ourselves to flood ourselves and self love, compassion, understanding, awareness and just take some time out just to be with those parts in us to accept them acknowledge them validate them deeply and choose differently for them - what do you need to do?

VIDEO: We need to feel to heal

Mon, 02 Oct 2023 07:51:59 GMT

Dig in, drop in and come home to yourself!

At times when you least feel like it.

We have to feel to heal.

Denial of all our difficult, challenging feelings serves only to squash them deeper inside; they will come up and out at later stages to get what they need – which is to be processed – to be felt and validated, then integrated.

Acknowledging that these feelings are not here to harm or disarm us in any way.

That they are part of us, albeit feelings from past parts, past experiences, past versions of ourselves.

That they simply need embracing, tending to with self compassion and thereby they become integrated.

This is healing.

VIDEO: Choose to think and feel differently to heal

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 12:48:11 GMT

Awareness is a great start to healing. Taking action is the next necessary step. Once we recognise the voice, and the content of that voice – how all the shoulds, ‘ought to’s’, musts might browbeat us daily.

When we realise these judgements, opinions, viewpoints might not even feel congruent to our true selves and that we might realise, these belong to someone else, these come from a parent or a former teacher perhaps, then we have agency. Then we have power. Then we get to choose.

Do we keep on beating ourselves up? Or do we choose differently? We can challenge, with compassion, all these inner statements, views, judgements that might hurt us. We can change our mind! We can decide to think and as a consequence feel differently, about ourselves, about our world.

This is where healing occurs. When we recognise the patterns we repeat over and over again, and use our recognition, to do differently, to think differently, independently of our former caregivers.

VIDEO: Why we abandon ourselves in relationship

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 07:25:27 GMT

These forms of relating to others - whether we shut off, close off, maintain an exterior - a tough exterior to protect ourselves, or whether we relate to others in an overgiving way at the expense of ourselves, are both forms potentially of trauma responses and learned behaviours from our childhoods;

how we related to our families, how we were treated in childhood by our primary caregivers and worth considering when we feel and think into how we might self abandon.

VIDEO: how we self abandon in relating to others

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 05:51:42 GMT

A significant form of self abandonment is how we relate to others. We may operate in a hyper independent mode where we feel quite self sufficient, where we feel shut off from others, where we close down purposely from others and choose to go about our business quite independently, as if we don’t need anybody else.

We are relational beings however and this may be a form of trauma response where perhaps in our childhood, the message was from our primary caregivers that we had to be independent, that we had to look after ourselves, otherwise we wouldn’t have survived (in that child mode of thinking).

The opposite to that may be overgiving, overrelating to others and this again is a form of trauma response whereby we may fawn or people please. Fawning is type of trauma response, a lesser known one; there’s the fight, flight, fright, freeze ones and then there’s the fawn, where we overgive, where we overextend ourselves, where we self abandon in order to fit in with the tribe, in order to please others and this is a learned strategy from our childhoods as well.

#cptsd #childhoodtrauma #reparenting #selfabandonment #traumatherapy #resilience

VIDEO: How we relate to ourselves is key to healing

Fri, 15 Sep 2023 06:53:49 GMT

How we talk to ourselves, often reflects how we were spoken to in childhood.

We carry these relating patterns with us in our bodies, we internalise the styles of relating that we received in childhood, predominantly from our primary care givers.

Do you recognise the harsh inner critic – we all have one! Do you recognise how this might be the voice of your mother or father?

When we realise these judgements, opinions, viewpoints might not even feel congruent to our true selves and when we might realise, these belong to someone else, these come from a parent or a former teacher perhaps, then we have agency. Then we have power. Then we get to choose.

VIDEO: More ways we can abandon ourselves energetically

Mon, 11 Sep 2023 15:18:01 GMT

Self abandonment energetically through hypervigilance or hypovigilance.

Either state is an indication that we’re not practising mindfulness towards ourselves, we’re not being mindful of our energy levels.

We are either overextending ourselves or underextending ourselves, not extending ourselves at all, and the invitation is to be mindful to practise mindfulness about the energy levels in our body.

When are we feeling very tired and lethargic, can we gee ourselves up, can we ennervate ourselves.

When are we feeling absolutely exhausted and pushing ourselves to the brink and need to rein it in and start to rest and look after ourselves.

So paying attention to our energy levels increasingly is a way of avoiding abandoning on that energetic level, understanding what our body needs. Do we need to rest or do we need to take some exercise and promote and energise ourselves.

VIDEO: Ways we can abandon ourselves energetically

Thu, 07 Sep 2023 15:09:53 GMT

So energetically we may self abandon and that may come in different ways. We may overexert ourselves, we may overstimulate our systems, be in hypervigilance. We may be overadrenalized, over exercise which means we can’t keep still. We expend all our energy and keep expending it over and over again.

The opposite may be where we underutilise our energy and lie low and go into what’s known as shutdown, what’s known as hypovigilance, the opposite to hypervigilance; this is where we have very little energy, where we feel lethargic and closed off and have little energy in the body, energy in the mind.

Both of these ways are clever ways where we self abandon and they may have been very clever in our childhoods where we had to shut down to protect ourselves and keep a low profile, keep out of the way, be invisible. And we may have developed a strategy to overexert ourselves, to keep busy all the time and to keep that energy going all the time, as a way of fleeing from certain situations which were not comfortable for us back then.

VIDEO: More ways we can self abandon emotionally

Mon, 04 Sep 2023 07:54:18 GMT

More ways we can self abandon emotionally...when we feel shut down, we feel disconnected from our emotions, we refuse to feel and we go into states of freeze.

We have emotional issues going on and we shut down from them. We compartmentalise, put them away in a box and sit on them and we might have different strategies to do that. It may be overeating for instance, and it may be other forms of addictive behaviours that mean we can squash those feelings.

When all we do is to shelve those feelings.

We have to deal with them at some point or they will get the better of us and so it’s best to deal with emotions as in when they come up.

VIDEO: Ways we can abandon ourselves emotionally

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 07:03:07 GMT

We can get caught up in the dramas of life, we can get caught up in gossip, in the chatter, in the news, and get emotionally riled by all of that and that is when we’re in a state of feeling overwhelm emotionally and feeling we are anxious.

We get caught up in all the dramas and feel unable then to have that equilibrium, that calmness about us and feeling at peace with ourselves. We stress out our bodies, minds, spirits, and emotionally we are discombobulated.

We can feel quite fragmented and all over the place and we’re behoven in that situation to rein it in, to protect our emotions - our sensitive, precious emotions, to cool them down, to bring them in, to stop the distraction and feeling that we have to be involved in everything that’s going on, watching the news persistently for instance, getting caught up in other people’s lives and dramas, watching soap operas - these are all ways that rev up our system, that stress us out and that emotionally can create overwhelm.

VIDEO: How we can abandon ourselves mentally

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 06:46:12 GMT

We can abandon ourselves mentally. A good example of this would be the workaholic, somebody who focuses on their job intently with the aim to avoid feeling.

So good question to ask ourselves is, do I love my job, am I focusing on my job inordinately. There will be times when we have projects for instance, a lot of work on.

But there’s a subtle difference between that and purposefully, perhaps unconsciously becoming a workaholic and focusing on the job beyond all else.

This can be a subtle form of avoiding feeling, feeling aspects of ourselves or thinking about aspects of our past that we no longer wish to focus upon at all.

It can be a great strategy to move into the head literally and move away from the body and neglect aspects of ourselves, because it’s too uncomfortable to do so.

So, have a think where you might be abandoning yourself mentally by disappearing into the head. It’s a great place to hide out and avoid aspects of ourselves that are difficult and that might feel uncomfortable.

VIDEO: How we can abandon ourselves physically

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 08:24:47 GMT

We can abandon ourselves physically and we can literally leave our bodies and live in the head. We can feel cut off from the neck down and may not have a good, healthy relationship with our body.

Our bodies may have been unsafe in childhood, and may have not been the best place to inhabit so to speak, for all kinds of reasons.

What can happen later in life is that we essentially deny our bodies in a number of ways.

We may either overeat and stuff our bodies and fill our bodies with stuff; or we may undereat, deprive our bodies of the nourishment and nurturance that we need; we may indulge in drugs, alcohol, forms of escapism to deny our bodies, to ignore our bodies and treat them badly.

We may avoid hydrating ourselves and moving as much as what feels right for ourselves.

And so in many ways, we can deny our bodies, we can treat our bodies badly and this can be a subtle form of self abandonment.

VIDEO: We don't self abandon on purpose!

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 06:49:19 GMT

We don’t choose consciously to abuse our own bodies, to over exhaust ourselves and put ourselves through our paces.

However when we are not aligned – mentally, physically, emotionally, energetically, spiritually. When things aren’t great in our lives perhaps relationally, at work, at home or in our social life; when something isn’t quite right, then we are behoven to check out what’s going on for ourselves and is there self abandonment occurring all the while.

Self abandonment can manifest mentally and physically, emotionally, energetically and relationally, and self abandonment can show up in our lives, in obvious and less obvious ways.

To reiterate, this isn’t something that we do on purpose. We don’t choose to have stress in our lives we don’t choose to self abandon.

We learn these self abandonment techniques in childhood, we learn from our primary caregivers first and foremost.

Also, self abandonment can be very a powerful form, a very powerful strategy to survive our childhoods.

VIDEO: How Good is your Relationship with Yourself?

Mon, 21 Aug 2023 06:50:28 GMT

If we have had trauma in our lives, and let’s face it, most of us probably have, we may not feel very well in our bodies. We may not feel at home in our bodies, and this may manifest as rejection of ourselves, self abandonment.

We may overeat to hide our bodies, we may abuse our bodies in similar ways as we may have been abused in our childhoods. There are many ways we can self abandon. We can neglect ourselves, we can feed ourselves the wrong sorts of foods, drink the wrong drinks, avoid activities, avoid movement. We can be distracted all the time and keep ourselves away from ourselves.

However there are ways we can manage this differently. We can stop the self abandonment. We can stop relating to ourselves in an unhealthy way. We may not have learned how to do this in childhood, we may have had the wrong attachment styles to our primary caregivers, we may not have received the love we needed in childhood.

And yet as adults now we can change that for the better. We can start to relate to ourselves better, we can start to nourish and nurture ourselves in ways we never had before.

Because the most important relationship we’ll ever have in our lives is the one with ourselves and if we don’t feel good on the inside we will not have a good quality of life on the outside.

VIDEO: Reframe your worst Traits.. they may have helped you survive!

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 06:42:45 GMT

You may notice in yourself traits you do not appreciate.

If you notice you have low self esteem or you self abandon in various ways for instance.

It may have been astute of you to have low self esteem as a child or to abandon yourself/your sense of self in childhood. These strategies may have kept you safe if you were subjected to adverse childhood experiences such as abuse or neglect.

These are learned behaviours that we can change. Neuroplasticity shows us it is possible at any stage of our lives.

We were not at fault in childhood for adopting any traits or strategies in order to survive.

We can choose as adults now differently if these no longer serve us.

We can choose to reframe these traits in a positive light as a starting point to positive change for ourselves.

VIDEO: Is your Life one of Integrity?

Mon, 14 Aug 2023 06:59:06 GMT

So the invitation with STRT is to have the opportunity to come home to oneself, to drop into the body where our true states lie, to connect with our true selves and to ask those questions for ourselves and have that opportunity, that space, that expansion to learn how to come home to the self more often, so that we can live this life of integrity.

This life where we feel connected to ourselves, that we are living our best lives, that we are living in integrity, with our purpose and our sense of self and have that inner peace, that inner sense of knowing who we are, what we’re about and that we are able to do that for ourselves.

VIDEO: Interoception - is your inner experience a positive one?

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 06:41:32 GMT

So the invitation is to start dropping into that body and noticing first of all what’s going on within, how well do we feel on the inside?

Do we feel aligned within, do we feel mind, body, spirit is all connected, that we are in our flow?

Do we get on with the day-to-day demands of life quite easily and show up in life as the best version of ourselves that we wish to be and want to be for ourselves and for others?

Do we feel love? Do we feel love for ourselves first and foremost, love for others and feel connected to ourselves and to life and have a sense of purpose for ourselves here on this planet Earth for the time that we get here?

These are just some of the considerations proposed when we start to practice interoception – noticing what’s going on within, and whether that inner experience is a good or challenging one.

VIDEO: Find, cultivate and cherish your true self to live your best life!

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 07:23:45 GMT

Living on the outside of ourselves means essentially we might be abandoning ourselves, our true selves.

So the invitation is to start dropping into that body and noticing first of all what’s going on within, how well do we feel on the inside?

Or, do we have aches and pains that make no sense, do we feel overwhelmed a lot of the time, get upset easily, distracted easily?

Are we looking to be distracted all the time, do we feel we can’t cope with the day-to-day life, never mind other stuff.

Do we feel disconnected from ourselves and from others?

Do we struggle to cope with all the demands on our lives and have a sense that something is not quite right and that we don’t feel that great on the inside.

These are some indications that we might be missing out on living our best lives, full of resilience and enjoying all that life has to offer, through inadvertently avoiding our true selves.

VIDEO: Take time out to come home to yourself

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 07:06:15 GMT

Life is so distracting these days, we’re so busy, caught up in our worlds, caught up in stress and living on the outside of ourselves, showing up in life, going to work, tending to our families, looking after ourselves as best as we can, having a social life, paying bills, organising, cooking, cleaning, washing etc.

And so it’s a big ask in a way to imagine dropping into our bodies, having time to be with ourselves, taking time out - precious time of which many of us don’t have much; to be with ourselves, to come home to ourselves and drop into the body through whatever practise that might be, it could be mindfulness, journaling, going for a walk in nature, yoga - any of these practices that afford us that blessed opportunity to come home to ourselves, to check in with ourselves, to check out our inner worlds, our realities.

VIDEO: Nervous system regulation - an inside job!

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 09:07:56 GMT

Most of us probably have no idea about the notion of nervous system regulation and nervous system dysregulation.

Essentially it’s how we feel on the inside, it’s how we feel inside of ourselves, our inner worlds, the conversations we have with ourselves on the regular basis, how we actually feel; are we connected with ourselves or are we living in our heads, are we living on the outside of ourselves really?

VIDEO: How STRT can support Self Soothing

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 08:59:01 GMT

So, self soothing is a really important factor in this day and age and my STRT Stress & Trauma Resolution Therapy supports clients with self soothing through co-regulation.

I’m able to afford clients the opportunity to feel how it can feel to be soothed, to be nervous system regulated in the here and now and to take that forward for themselves, and to show and model how that can be done through different means, which is not necessarily externally influenced.

VIDEO: Learn to Self Soothe naturally to avoid Secondary Issues

Fri, 21 Jul 2023 06:39:24 GMT

If we can self regulate, self soothe, all the better; and that can be through any number of ways - through belly breathing, deep breathing, through sports, nature, through natural means.

This means we don’t have secondary issues going on, say from a tendency to self soothe through food for instance and then we have weight gain to deal with and then we have the health issues to deal with.

VIDEO: Be the Captain of your own Ship through Self Regulation!

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 06:30:16 GMT

The ability to self soothe without any of those addictive tendencies is of primary importance in this day and age where we are distracted the whole time, where socially it’s acceptable to be on our phones all the time. Our phones are a massive self soother. The minute we feel any discomfort internally, even if we don’t cognitise it and realise what’s happening, we might reach for our phones to self soothe.

So the ability to self soothe directly without props, without addictive tendencies, without external influences is an important one because it means we are the captain of our own ships.

VIDEO: Self Regulation should be an Inside Job!

Fri, 14 Jul 2023 06:37:08 GMT

Self regulation is when we’re able to soothe our own nervous systems and we learn this in childhood if we’ve been raised by primary caregivers who have been able to teach us how to self regulate.

We learn to self regulate through co-regulation, and we pick this up from our primary caregivers, parents, teachers, and people who influence us early on in life.

If we haven’t received that co-regulation in childhood, then as adults we may struggle with self-regulation, and that means we can look externally to self soothe. And that might be through a number of ways including various types of addictions, it could be drink, food, alcohol, TV and other distractions to self soothe.

VIDEO: Find Agency in your Life!

Tue, 11 Jul 2023 06:46:52 GMT

Clients can experience any number of beautiful results and outcomes from their treatments.

I’ve had so many success stories of clients who feel so much better from their sessions, so much relief from painful conditions, physical pain, aches, tightness, tension;

from feeling overwhelmed to feeling free, liberated, calm, relaxed, soothed;

to being able to manage their emotions better, to showing up in life better where they’re not triggered all the time by some invisible force that they feel takes over and controls them.

They have so much more control, so much more agency in their lives.

They feel that expansion on every level, they have more energy, they feel more dynamic, that they have agency in their lives once more and they’re not behoven to some invisible force that seems to direct and steer their lives and have them feeling in ways that they just don’t understand.

VIDEO: Breathe your way to good Health!

Thu, 06 Jul 2023 06:07:45 GMT

Breathing well and deeply is crucial to our wellbeing and offer the easiest and best antidote to stress.

If we do little else about our stress levels, learning how to breathe properly and into the belly can improve our lives significantly! We get to:

· change our physiology for the better – from the stress state to the relaxation state

· reduce our anxiety, depression, fear states

· lower our aches, pain and tension

· clear our bodies of inflammation

· improve our emotions and so potentially our choices in life

· nourish all our organs and so improve our internal working systems

· raise our immunity

· improve our sleep, digestion, skin

· extend our life, really!

We can break the cycle of stress in the short term, reverse all the ill effects of stress, and extend our lives in the longer term through reducing allostatic load in our bodies.

VIDEO: Get out of your Head and into your Body!

Mon, 03 Jul 2023 05:45:03 GMT

This STRT therapy is a beautiful therapy to support clients to come into their true selves.

As, many of us can live in our heads and it’s not the true place; we are not our heads, we have a mind and it has amazing capacity and is an incredible tool, it’s a phenomenal tool to support us with our lives and yet it is in our gut brain where our true self resides and lies.

So my therapy is an embodied therapy; it tackles all of these symptoms - what we think of as maybe being the main agenda, the main problem, the main issue whether that’s physical, mental or emotional.

Really what’s going on underneath is nervous system dysregulation. We are just disconnected from our true nature, from our true selves and I support clients to come back into the body as and when they feel safe enough to do so.

This affords them that beautiful opportunity to reconnect finally with themselves, to understand better what they need in life, how much support they need with regards to managing this state that feels out of control sometimes where they dip naturally into the stress state rather than the rest and digest state.

VIDEO: How STRT can help you find your Mojo!

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 06:24:31 GMT

Many clients show up who to all intents and purposes are fully functioning. They have amazing careers, great jobs, they might be family members who have a whole raft of family around them, then they show up all day everyday, essentially being as much as the best version of themselves they can be and yet still feeling something’s missing; that they’re really working hard to create that life that they think is the right life for them and yet they feel this huge emptiness, loss, a sense that something’s missing and this therapy can support with that.

This therapy can support the spiritual aspect of how people can feel a bit lost in life and not really sure where they are going and in spite of all the efforting, all of the hustle, that they have no meaning to life, that they’ve lost their vocations somehow and this therapy is a beautiful therapy to support clients to come into their true selves.

VIDEO: The Impacts of Stress on our Physiology

Mon, 26 Jun 2023 06:40:33 GMT

So what actually occurs physiologically when the nervous system perceives danger.

The stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol are released into the system creating the following internal changes:

· Increased blood pressure

· Elevated heart rate

· Shallow breathing

This is helpful and appropriate if we really are in danger, as the body is prepared to fight against or flee from the threat, flooding the muscles with blood so they are primed to act.

However with chronic stress, the stress hormones are being released continuously, creating the same changes in the body on an ongoing basis.

The body never gets to rest, remaining in a state of hyperarousal or hypervigilance instead. Over time, the effects on us emotionally, physically and mentally are draining.

We are not meant to remain in a constant state of stress. Throughout our day it is good to have peaks of eustress - the good stress, with the preferred state being that of rest and digest.

VIDEO: The Defining Feature of Trauma is Loss

Fri, 23 Jun 2023 06:44:32 GMT

The defining feature of trauma is loss. Loss of loved ones, loss of identity perhaps due to a challenging childhood, loss of a sense of self when we or our life circumstances change, for example.

STRT helps clients with loss of any kind and affords clients the space, safety and support to gain a sense of self, agency, a return to their true identity - beyond the career, accolades, status etc. whatever vehicle they may use to seek and find this externally.

Instead of searching for that sense of peace, calm, compassion, love, meaning, purpose outside of ourselves, the invitation is to find that from within, to drop into the body and feel this within.

This is an opportunity for a true homecoming to oneself.

VIDEO: Eustress v Chronic Stress

Mon, 19 Jun 2023 06:38:19 GMT

We can be in the stress state where our bodies producing adrenaline and cortisol and that has a specific number of physiological reactions or we can be in the rest and digest state and that has a corresponding other response in the body. So we can career between these states of being.

Stress per say is good for us as we need stress to get up and to get on with our lives, to go about our business, to wake up in the morning and to have that motivation to get up, have a shower, get out to work and get going. This is known as eustress, this is the good stress in our lives.

However the steady state we wish to be in generally is to be in the rest and digest state and unfortunately for people who have had trauma in the past who are experiencing high anxiety, depression, overwhelm, any issues of emotional unease, then this means that the nervous system is wired to react in producing the stress hormones, to defaulting to stress rather than rest and digest.

VIDEO: External Chronic Stress signals a Lack of Safety to the Brain

Fri, 16 Jun 2023 21:11:29 GMT

Chronic stress - there may be triggers us in our environment that keep triggering us, that keep sending us into the stress states, so we end up living in a sense of perpetual, chronic stress. Our body reacts to certain situations in the same way as if it feels unsafe and what this means physiologically on the body is that the gut brain signals to the brain that we’re in danger and so the corresponding physiological responses that occur from the brain is that our stress hormones are released, let’s say it’s a stressful situation and this has a whole raft of symptoms that occur within the body, reactions that occur within the body, that then determine whether we are going to be in a stress state or a rest and digest state - we have the two opposites.

VIDEO: The Origins of a Dysregulated Nervous System

Tue, 13 Jun 2023 21:03:23 GMT

A dysregulated nervous system. What this means is, it is primed, this gut brain is primed for stress. It detects danger all the time. You could argue it malfunctions but not really; what it’s doing is reacting to previous stressful states it has been through and it recalls the memory of these stressful states.

So anybody who’s experienced trauma for instance will be wired to be in that state of lack of safety over and over again due to an original trauma, whether that happened 5 minutes ago, five years ago, 50 years ago. This gut brain doesn’t know time, so if we had developmental trauma, a trauma that happened to us in childhood, it could have happened before we were able to speak, could have happened in our mother’s womb for instance, then the body remembers.

The body holds every single memory it has ever encountered in life. And so from that memory of an original trauma, this nervous system will be wired to be primed to react to that original trauma. And so anything in the fullness of time since that original trauma may trigger us into the same physiological response by the nervous system of the original trauma.

VIDEO: Depression, Anxiety, Overwhelm, Stress can all be due to a Dysregulated Nervous System.

Sat, 10 Jun 2023 20:53:53 GMT

The issue is when we do have problems concerning depression, anxiety, overwhelm, thoughts that we can’t switch off; these can manifest also in physical ailments such as tightness, tension, injuries that are not due to a specific injury but ailments of the body that manifest without any reason, chronic pain, insomnia, issues of the emotions where we might feel overwhelmed, tearful, feel that we’re not coping very well in life, or conversely depressed where we shutdown, where we want to cut off from others and hide away as we don’t feel well enough to show up as the best versions of ourselves we can be in life. So we might want to hide away, cut off from the world.

So, all of these issues begin in the gut brain and this is due to a dysregulated nervous system.

VIDEO: The Gut Brain - the Governor of our entire World!

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 20:44:25 GMT

While many people think they may have an issue of the mind, that they have worry, overwhelm, a monkey mind that never switches off, conversations going in the head which may feel infernal and impossible to control, this is governed by the state that our body is in.

We have a brain and the brain is a wonderful tool. We can fill it with information that supports us to get by in life, like a computer full of programmes that we’ve downloaded in life from our parents, primary caregivers, from school, over the many years that we’ve been growing and developing and showing up in the world. However we are not our brain. We have a brain and we can use that to our advantage. However the thoughts that we have are not necessarily us, we have thoughts.

What we do have is this gut brain which is the governor of our entire world. This is where our intuition lies this, this is where we make gut decisions, this is where we sense what is safe and what isn’t safe in the world.

VIDEO: Come home to yourself to live your best life!

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 06:47:23 GMT

STRT sessions provide a space of safety for you to come home to yourself truly, to integrate mind, body and soul and feel grounded, expansive, clear and deeply well.

VIDEO: Replace Stress and Trauma with Resilience with STRT

Wed, 31 May 2023 07:12:42 GMT

So this beautiful therapy STRT is an opportunity to support clients to recalibrate their nervous systems, to come into a beautiful state of rest and digest and over time with regular sessions what can happen is this nervous system undoes the original wiring, these wirings that are primed to turn a client into the stress state all the time gradually these dissolve and in its place new neural pathways are formed which means that the client is more inclined to drop into a state of safe and social as a default rather than the stress state.

What this means invariably is that in place of these autonomic, automatic states of stress which take up an inordinate amount of energy and can be exhausting and can result in a whole raft of physical, mental, emotional issues, pain, overwhelm, a mind that we can’t switch off , distress, upset, lack of energy, exhaustion and furthermore, longer term conditions overtime.

Instead of that we can create that expansiveness, support the system to get into the rest and digest state which means that in the place of all of that pain on every level, we can replace that with resilience.

VIDEO: A 'bottom up' Approach to Recovery from Trauma and Stress

Mon, 29 May 2023 05:54:59 GMT

Stress and Trauma Resolution therapy – STRT - is a body based therapy to support clients manage their traumas from the past, their chronic stress, anxiety or depression – any issues involving dysregulated emotions, overwhelming emotions and feelings that impact on our lives in the here and now.

This is known as the 'bottom up' approach to recovery from trauma and stress.

This body based therapy supports reduction in these symptoms through the body and the reason we do this therapy through body is because this is where it begins – this is the source of our issues. Our ‘gut brain’ is the seat of our emotions, it is the start of where we begin our emotional world, our inner world, and it is the state of the gut that informs our brain as to what states are in internally.

VIDEO: STRT - an unique therapy based upon safety - the key and cornerstone to healing

Sat, 27 May 2023 06:20:29 GMT

I’ve supported so many people in so many different ways with this Stress & Trauma Resolution Therapy.

It is quite unique as in it is body based, and predicated on neuroscience, transactional analysis, psychotherapy and massage.

Predominantly it is a massage treatment. It is a treatment that calls upon specific moves, uses specific strokes that communicate directly to our nervous systems to soothe the nervous system and to send the signal to clients’ nervous systems that they are safe and it’s through this process of bringing in that safety that we rewire the neurons, so the trigger is no longer lack of safety and fear, the trigger is that we are safe.

VIDEO: STRT Therapy includes support beyond the Therapy Room

Thu, 25 May 2023 20:25:27 GMT

Through these treatments and the support that I give beyond the sessional rooms such as specific exercises, practices, breathing techniques for instance, my clients can practise beyond the treatment room.

Then clients are well equipped to support themselves to come into regulation as often as they need to until it becomes automatic and then they’re living their best lives.

If you have any questions about STRT, please do not hesitate to ask me.

I’m going to be showing up going forwards with videos like this, with information, education on various aspects of nervous system regulation, the impacts this can have us physically, mentally, emotionally, addictions and how that plays into this whole agenda and much more information that I hope will be helpful for you.

VIDEO: STRT is an Embodied Therapy

Tue, 23 May 2023 20:16:51 GMT

This STRT therapy that I offer is a beautiful therapy, it is an embodied therapy that tackles the most issues at source which is nervous system dysregulation.

It supports clients to come out of nervous system dysregulation, of stress and supports the body to default to the rest and digest state where we can feel relaxed, soothed, expansive, clear, clear headed, clear minded, free of the burdens of difficult emotions.

We can switch off those states of high anxiety or deep depression.

We can turn around pain, pain that has no reason to be there. Pain that isn’t due to surgery or an injury may be due to an overactive nervous system that is primed to be in the fight/flight/fright state, so that there’s tension in the body all the time and that the body never gets to relax, with muscles that are overworked, that are always tense and tight and this causes the tension and the pain that we can experience chronically when our nervous system is dysregulated.

Published Article re STRT in the GHP Mental Health Award Winners Supplement

Wed, 10 May 2023 20:04:06 GMT

You can read my article published in the GHP Mental Health Award winners supplement for further details of the service I’ve been awarded for ‘Best Stress and Trauma Resolution Therapy Provider 2023 in the North West of England’.

https://www.ghp-news.com/issues/mental-health-awards-2023/

Best Stress & Trauma Resolution Therapy Provider NW UK 2023

Mon, 08 May 2023 06:41:50 GMT

I am honoured and humbled to have been awarded this year Best Stress and Trauma Resolution Provider in the North West of England for recognition of my services for mental health for the GHP Mental Health Awards 2023, hosted by the Global Health & Pharma publication.

The Global Health & Pharma publication is a renowned digital magazine and global information sharing platform which hosts an annual award programme for a variety of sectors, including the mental health and wellbeing industry.

Mental health thankfully is being recognised increasingly as a vital constituent to good health and wellbeing and can change people’s lives for the better.

Stress & Trauma Resolution Therapy is a body based therapeutic service I offer that supports release of trauma and stress at source within the nervous system and helps clients undo trauma imprints and stress patterns, to gain relief from challenging symptoms, making way for resilience to grow and so improving their quality of life in every which way - mentally, physically, emotionally, energetically and spiritually.

I am grateful to the GHP Magazine for raising the profile of mental health through this award programme and delighted to make my contribution to mental health through this service I offer.

VIDEO: Raw Veganism as a means of Healing

Tue, 02 Aug 2022 09:10:22 GMT

A new and exciting path on my healing journey!

After spending an incredible week at the fantastic UK Fruitfest in the sublime rolling hills of Herefordshire, where I massaged to my hearts content, participated in amazing talks, group and one2one sessions, learned so much and made great friends!

I can't wait to go back next year for what was an all encompassing, nurturing and nourishing reset for my mind, body and soul.

From Surviving to Striving to Thriving!

Mon, 01 Aug 2022 07:58:04 GMT

My healing journey so far!

This is the full Youtube video with Ray Coates outlining how it is entirely possible to heal ourselves and from a place of adversity, come to a place of healing, health and happiness and to be in a position to be able to help others.

UK Fruitfest - a new path on my healing journey

Sun, 31 Jul 2022 07:59:44 GMT

UK Fruitfest, Dunfield House, Herefordshire, July 2022

I believe in a holistic way of approaching good mental, physical and emotional health and was lucky enough to have been invited to massage at the UK Fruitfest last week.

This experience of eating raw vegan was incredible. I had no idea I was about to embark upon a new path on my own healing journey, diving deeper into clearing deeply rooted and deeply held beliefs, mindsets and paradigms.

I spent the week both supporting others with treatments as well as embracing the raw vegan diet and realising just how much food can be an emotional crutch and a form of distraction from and denial of feeling deeper entrenched feelings and so a way of disconnection from the true self.

Whilst I already eat pretty cleanly for energy and vitality, this opportunity for being modelled best practice in terms of what and how to eat as well as all the health benefits of raw vegan eating, was a true gift.

I met and made wonderful friends from all over the world, and I felt welcomed and truly at home. It was a true retreat embracing all aspects of healing and health and I look forward to this new chapter in my life’s book!

VIDEO: Benefits of Targeted Cryotherapy

Fri, 08 Jul 2022 07:41:39 GMT

Manage inflammation naturally!

There are so many benefits to targeted cryotherapy which offers a natural way to manage any condition that causes inflammation.

This efficient treatment offers pain relief, increased range of movement for a range of conditions as well as supports faster and effective recovery from your workouts, any joint or muscle injury or post surgery.

I use targeted cryotherapy on my own knees to remove build up of inflammation from overuse and to keep them pain free and healthy.

Ideal for

Rheumatoid arthritis
Fibromyalgia
Long Covid
Injury and surgery recovery
Ankylosing spondylitis

VIDEO: The Benefits of a Cryofacial Treatment

Tue, 05 Jul 2022 08:59:45 GMT

Cool off this summer with a beautiful Cryofacial Treatment

Check out my video to hear of the wide range of benefits and how good it feels to receive such a treatment.

This treatment is natural, safe and effective for a number of conditions such as:

· Eczema

· Acne

· Topical Withdrawal Syndrome

· Psoriasis

VIDEO: Happy Therapist, Happy Clients!

Sun, 03 Jul 2022 20:32:05 GMT

It is said a therapist can only help their clients go as far and deep as they themselves have gone with their own inner work.

Having worked on myself for over 20 years with psychotherapy, group therapy, embodiment work and trauma healing and more, I continue my inner work every day as it never ends. I journal daily, unpack and unpick my beliefs and mindsets, explore my triggers, practice reframing. My nutrition choices are conscious and for optimum health. Every day I get out in nature, meditate, practice yin yoga, sound bathe. I continue my week with a selection of practices for good health and wellbeing such as hot yoga, cold water swimming, conscious connected breathwork and womb healing amongst others.

I am in a great place and wish to stay here and so this inner work is never done. Instead we can return over and over again to the same themes, allowing for deeper dives and new experiences and revelations from the same issues. We may begin perhaps with talking therapy, cognitising and rationalising issues, then lean into them feeling the full range of emotions. We may experience them somatically and energetically then further, spiritually. Until full integration occurs, when all the processing and grieving is done, perhaps for what was and what wasn't, for what we got and what we didn't get in our lives.

It is an honour to hold space for clients to come and share, dive even a little into their issues and gain fresh insights and understanding of what bothers them, be that physical, emotional or mental.

It is an honour to hold trust for clients to release traumas in a gentle, non invasive, safe way.

If you feel this resonates and think I might be able to support you, please feel free to contact me for your free initial consultation to explore how I can help.

VIDEO: Being present expands time!

Wed, 15 Jun 2022 07:02:48 GMT

Never feel you have enough time? Constantly chasing your tale, clock watching and trying even to beat the clock?

Living this way creates fear and stress in the body. Fear of not having enough (time). This is scarcity mentality that leaves us in lack over and over.

If we feel we don’t have enough time now, we will never have enough time. It is a mental perception that might benefit from a reframe.

When we scatter our energy trying to achieve everything at once including attempting to multitask, we exhaust ourselves in the process. The stress created is exhausting in and of itself, never mind trying to spin many plates at once.

I attended a speed awareness course recently (yes the irony doesn’t escape me!), and discovered how driving over the speed limit gains us mere moments and yet the price to pay in terms of stress and exhaustion is monumental and really not worth the limited gain of a few minutes.

Peace of mind is everything. We are surrounded by stress and cannot avoid it. We can however choose how we respond to stress, including reviewing our ‘relationship’ with time. The ‘to do’ list will always be there. Sure we have deadlines and most probably always meet them.

How about coming fully into the present tense by focusing on exactly what we have to do in the here and now and just that. How about we choose to decide that we do in fact have enough time. The more present we can be, the less stressed we can be and therefore the more ease we have in our body.

As we breathe deeply and settle into the present moment and expand both our awareness of the here and now as well as the space within our body, we can literally expand the moment.

We can get to enjoy the moment too – I hope you can find the time to enjoy this little video!

VIDEO: From Stress to Rest for Longer!

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 06:54:41 GMT

Longer sessions available on the couch to support your wellbeing

Take time out, to remember who you truly are, to return to and reconnect with your magnificent self!

Longer sessions on the couch afford you the opportunity to drop into your body, leave your mind, worries, concerns, fears behind and to truly unwind and deeply relax.

Gift yourself the opportunity to switch from the stress state to the rest state for longer.

MY WHY!

Sat, 11 Jun 2022 07:06:10 GMT

Why do I love to treat bodies?!

I feel incredibly well when I treat clients.

Whatever the treatment – Trauma Discharge Therapy, No Hands massage, Indian head massage, sports massage, and often a combination of them all along with targeted cryotherapy, treating a client is like therapy for myself!

My passion is embodiment – having spent a large part of my life disembodied, disconnected from my True Self and living in my head!

Having lived a life on autopilot and disengaged from myself and others, I know better now – that to feel deeply well, I need to operate from my body first and foremost.

I have come to trust in my body wisdom as it knows what is good for me.

And so, to my choice of occupation. Bodywork! It is perfect for me!

My work brings me into embodied presence where I can drop any catastrophising thoughts about the future and let go of any ruminating thoughts about the past

In the present I feel whole, complete, calm, contented, relaxed, peaceful and at ONE with myself.

All thoughts, doubts, fears, anxieties and so STRESS disappear in the here and now.

My inner world is at peace – my mind, body and soul are aligned and at one with each other, rather than in conflict that can create stress for me.

In the absence of stress, I

*** Flood my body with feel good hormones – endorphins, serotonin, oxytocin.

*** Reduce my heart rate

*** Lower my blood pressure

*** Dissolve any tension in my body

*** Let go of the infernal inner monkey chatter

*** Breathe deeper, better and in doing so I flood my organs and whole body with freshly oxygenated and nutrient rich blood and so improve all my internal systems

*** Recalibrate my nervous system, and so cease to produce stress chemicals adrenaline and cortisol that cause inflammation in my body and can ultimately make me very sick

My clients often ask me how can I do these treatments all day – how I must be so exhausted!

When it’s quite the opposite!

I get into bliss states! And so, it is an honour and a joy to do this vocation and be of service to help others.

So, this is what happens for me when I give you a treatment!

Imagine how great you can feel to receive a treatment from me!

Your body, mind and spirit get to rest, relax, restore, recuperate, recover, recharge and reset!

VIDEO: Interoception for Good Health!

Fri, 10 Jun 2022 07:58:14 GMT

Getting to know ourselves from the Inside Out!

Can you watch this little 30 second video. Do you notice the movement, the stillness, the colours, do you hear the sounds, what else do you notice?

Do you notice any frustration occurring within, wanting to speed it up, come off it, how your mind wanders already, on to the next thought or experience?

S L O W down. Right down.

Can you apply the same focus to yourself, your inner landscape. How do you feel right now, truly?

The significance of this inner wisdom and ultimately our own personal and unique truth, is completely underrated, undervalued and downplayed.

And yet, it is what makes us so individual, special, unique. It is where we discover and can cultivate our innate creativity and talents, rather than being a robot existing in the head and operating from learned external influences and scripts.

Our minds after all are an amazing tool however are simply a repeated fabrication of the past, mindsets and beliefs ingrained from our primary caregivers and big influences from early childhood and whatever else we are exposed to from the outside world on a daily basis.

Taking time to sit with ourselves, tune in, get to know our selves intimately through interoception – recognising, feeling, understanding our inner landscapes is vital, for good mental, physical and emotional health, for peace of mind, for a truly enriching and rewarding life.

VIDEO: Healing can only take place in Safety

Wed, 08 Jun 2022 11:39:42 GMT

Safety IS the treatment, to return home, to our innate body wisdom and true self

See how this deer interacted with me… we eye gazed for a minute before I thought to record this. I get the sense she felt safe around me.

Physical safety is crucial for my clients to be able to relax and settle into their body in order for any healing to take place.

The environment is paramount to setting a scene of safety, for all my clients and in particular those receiving Trauma Discharge Therapy.

My room is quiet, private, comfortable and welcoming, setting the scene for safety.

Anything discussed is confidential and remains so always.

I undertake a detailed consultation prior to treatments to understand your situation and needs.

That said, disclosure of traumatic events and circumstances is not required to facilitate trauma release.

I am relaxed, open minded and open hearted. I ensure my nervous system is regulated, with deep breathing and grounding techniques. This ensures I am fully present for you and able to hold the space for you and whatever occurs during your session.

As we discuss your needs, we begin to connect and I remain grounded in my sense of self whilst attuning and connecting with you in the non physical, energetic sense.

Mirror neurons mean we are unconsciously clocking each other, sizing each other up, assessing the situation. Your body may start to mirror my unspoken body language and begin to slow down, relax.

You may notice yourself breathing easier and deeper, coming into presence, feeling more grounded. Your nervous system is adjusting to the new environment and recalibrating. You can leave everything else outside the door. For the next few hours, please know you are safe to settle, to be heard, witnessed, validated, held.

Whilst I would wish for no one to experience trauma in their lifetime, I am at peace with my own traumas through consistent and committed therapeutic practices.

I know from experience, Trauma Discharge Therapy worked for me, among other practices, and it is therefore an honour to bring this work to you in the hope it can help you too.

VIDEO: The importance of Self Care Rituals

Tue, 07 Jun 2022 08:53:02 GMT

What are your self care rituals that serve you best presently?

Do you have/find/create time for self care rituals?

How you live your life is the biggest ritual in and of itself. What do you fill your life with? Roles, responsibilities, duties, spinning plates?

Self care rituals can support you to return to yourself again and again – physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically, spiritually.

Review and upgrade your rituals regularly to ensure they remain alive, make sense and fulfil a purpose for you. Otherwise they can become an unconscious habit with little meaning, just another ‘to do’ on the never ending ‘to do list’!

Keep your practices intentional and relevant to you and your life in the here and now. We are constantly evolving, and rituals should serve you rather than burden you.

Make your rituals embodied so that you get to connect deeply to yourself on the regular.

Many of my clients report that their regular treatments with me play a significant role in sustaining their self care and wellbeing.

What are your self care rituals that currently serve you best?

Podcast - my personal and professional journey to being a Trauma Resolution Therapist

Tue, 24 May 2022 12:30:34 GMT

From Surviving to Striving to Thriving!

Settle in and watch my podcast which I shared with Leah Morgan of Still We Rise Coaching as part of the online Learning Retreat for Grief & Trauma this weekend gone.

In this, you will hear about:

· What trauma means to me, on a personal and professional level

· How I have used my lived experiences of personal trauma to bring me from surviving to striving to thriving

· How I came to work in the trauma field of trauma resolution

· What my present field of work is in relation to trauma

· What is Trauma Discharge Therapy (TDT) and how can it help you

· Why TDT is an effective therapy for trauma recovery

· Why trauma is so significant now and how can we support ourselves from its ill effects.

Programme Details for Online Learning Retreat for Trauma & Grief, May 2022

Wed, 18 May 2022 13:13:15 GMT

This is such a generous offering. Look at this wealth of knowledgeable speakers!!! Please jump in and sign up, to watch at your leisure. All recordings will be available to you for 7 days... completely free of charge.

With over 20 speakers, offering real resources for individuals and families who have experienced loss and/or trauma at any level.

Here is the timetable packed full of sincere and heartfelt offerings.

Proceeds from the programme are all for Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital.

Please share this with anybody you feel may benefit.

VIDEO: Clip of my Podcast for the Free Online Learning Retreat on Grief & Trauma

Mon, 16 May 2022 12:54:00 GMT

Check out this clip of my podcast for the Online Learning Retreat, in which I explain about Trauma Discharge Therapy, one of the treatments I offer and am passionate about.

Trauma Discharge Therapy is a type of massage treatment underpinned by neuroscience regarding nervous system regulation. As a client, this is a beautiful, relaxing, nurturing treatment that affords you the opportunity to come into safety, to feel safe within and with me supporting you. This treatment allows for trauma release and for your nervous system to replace the imprint of trauma with safety. In the absence of trauma, your resilience can begin to flourish.

Trauma can occur in so many ways – we may think of trauma being a terrible one off incident such as a car accident or a violent attack or ongoing such as war.

Other examples of trauma may be a child facing circumstances they are unable to escape from over time such as bullying at school or neglect at home. Trauma can occur for an adult facing domestic abuse. We can become traumatised second hand through witnessing trauma such as watching the horrors war being played out on our TV screens day in day out.

Trauma occurs simply when we feel overwhelmed and unable to deal with the circumstances we are faced with.

Trauma mostly involves loss or fear of loss of something of value to ourselves – loss of life, a limb, freedom, sense of safety, identity and a sense of self even.

Trauma can impact us in so many ways, often these might be pernicious, affecting us mentally, emotionally, energetically as well as physically.

We may feel overwhelmed and unable to deal with life, we may suffer from depression and/or anxiety, we may feel perpetually exhausted, suffer from insomnia, and have unexplained symptoms such as stomach problems, inexplicable pain in the body, low immunity causing slow wound healing/recurrent flus/minor infections. These are just a few of the ways trauma shows up in the body and mind.

If you identify yourself has dealing a number of health issues with no obvious cause, it may be that your system is overwhelmed and struggling to maintain your health and wellbeing due to an overload of trauma.

You can watch the whole podcast as part of the online Grief & Trauma Learning Retreat taking place from 20 May.

Please copy this link and sign up for your free place.

https://stillwerisecoaching.com/grief... .

VIDEO: Understanding Trauma, Chronic Stress and its impact upon our Nervous System

Sat, 07 May 2022 20:04:38 GMT

This is a great short video explaining about trauma, chronic stress and the impact upon our lives.

This explains how trauma is not an event that happened to us, however how we respond to the event that happened to us. It is our inner experience of the event.

Trauma Discharge Therapy is underpinned by Dr Stephan Porges’ Polyvagal theory and Attachment Theory outlined in this video.

This treatment I offer can support you to release trauma at source from the body as well as change your automatic responses to perceived threats, so that you can start to live your life in the present, rather than based upon a historical need for protection.

Healing from trauma and chronic stress is possible, through coregulation and learning to feel safe again. You can begin to feel well, resilient and empowered to live your life now.

Trauma Discharge Therapy is a safe and powerful blend of massage, psychology and neuroscience, which reduces the amount of trauma imprinted in our nervous system and supports it to return to its normal state of healthy self regulation.

There is no need to share details of your traumas which can sometimes be retriggering and upsetting. Instead, Trauma Discharge Therapy is a gentle and pleasant experience using touch and body movements that are trauma informed, safe and soothing.

Online Grief & Trauma Learning Retreat from 20 May 2022

Fri, 06 May 2022 19:38:17 GMT

Access the online events and podcasts on 20-22 May, plus 7 days of replays after the event.

On 20-22 May I am taking part in The Learning Retreat around Grief and Trauma and will be one of the speakers giving an interview about what trauma is and how I work at source to release trauma from the body. I explain my lived experiences of trauma and how not to manage trauma most effectively…as well as what is helpful to support ourselves to trauma resolution!

This online learning retreat will include expert and inspirational speakers, covering a range of subjects including grief, trauma, anxiety, PTSD, depression, loss, change, worry, and overwhelm.

There are 21 speakers and we all want it to be really special to add value and help you see that lasting change is available in your life. So there will be plenty of experts talking about these incredibly important topics in a variety of ways.

If you want to know more about grief and trauma and how to heal from it, you don't want to miss this.

Click below to register for this free online retreat.

https://bit.ly/GriefandTraumaConference

Free Online Grief and Trauma Learning Retreat Announcement

Wed, 04 May 2022 19:28:36 GMT

Please join me and many other specialist speakers for this 2 day online event on all matters trauma, grief, anxiety, depression

Please join me and many other speakers for this free Online Learning Retreat for Grief and Trauma from May 20 2022.

This will be a 2 day online event hosted by Grief & Trauma Coach and Yoga Teacher Leah Morgan of Still We Rise Coaching , with all proceeds to go to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital to fight childhood cancer and leukaemia.

This is an online social movement to empower grief, trauma and mental health survivors to gain insights into what they can do to improve and transform their lives, with the speakers offering a specialist network of support through their contributions, information, expertise and experience, featured via informal discussions, interview-style or formal presentations. Content will be available for 7 days.

This learning retreat will include expert and inspirational speakers for this debut online event, covering a range of subjects including grief, trauma, anxiety, PTSD, depression, loss, change, worry, and overwhelm.

I have been fortunate enough to contribute a podcast with Leah sharing about my personal journey and professional involvement with trauma and outlining how I support clients to release trauma with Trauma Discharge Therapy. More details to follow.

VIDEO: How well do you truly feel?

hello@cryo-massage.co.uk (Jan Normanton) — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 09:51:49 GMT

Embodiment is key! To an enriching, fulfilling, satisfying life!

Check out my video below for an exploration!

We are so distracted, disoriented, disconnected all the time –

Through our work, our busy lives, the internet and social media, computers and mobile phones, Netflix, gaming, all our roles and responsibilities, addictive tendencies, the life we keep striving at and yet which never seems to arrive.

When we think we want more money, status, items, clothes, the latest gadgets, best car, expensive holidays, what do we really want? What feelings and emotions are we seeking?

Are we not all yearning for something quite simple? Something that really, lies within us and is there always and always has been – deep bone contentment and peace of mind?

Good health, simple food, movement, fresh air, friendships and family, love, time for self care and to be truly present with ourselves. None of this has to be expensive or complicated and strived towards. It is mostly available to us all, at all times.

Keeping life simple, nourishing and nurturing ourselves though simple practices, creates expansion in our lives and in our bodies and generates energy and wellness.

The more we come to live in the body, in embodied presence, the more we can feel expansive, whole, replenished, grounded, connected – really well!

Life can feel so complicated and yet, everything we need and yearn for lies within. If we slow down, take a breath, tune in. This is what we are most likely yearning for – to know, love, cherish our true selves. This is everything.

Launch Sister Circle Video

hello@cryo-massage.co.uk (Jan Normanton) — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 13:57:10 GMT

Our first Sister Circle on Sunday 13 March was received so well! Watch the video to see what you can expect!

Join Jo and I for our next Sister Circle on Sunday 10 April at 6pm ��

This is a unique opportunity to share, be heard and validated, to listen deeply and connect to other women. Whilst each of us are unique beings, experiencing connection through others’ experiences and stories can support each of us.

If you feel drawn to:

· Reconnect - to yourself and others

· Reclaim - your true sense of self, unique identity, authenticity

· Reignite - your mojo, ambition, lust for life

· Reframe – your purpose as a woman wherever you are at

Our Sister Circle will enable all this and more through sharing and actively listening, embodiment exercises and mindfulness practices, to enhance and improve our emotional and physical wellbeing.

Investment is £15 payable in advance to secure your place as places are limited. Please message me to book your place or to ask any questions. You can also call me on 07944 655645.

Launch Sister Circle!

hello@cryo-massage.co.uk (Jan Normanton) — Sun, 27 Feb 2022 19:48:41 GMT

Welcome to the launch of our monthly Sister Circle!

Our Sister Circles are co hosted by Jo and myself, qualified and experienced coaches and therapists. We share a wealth of embodiment and mindful practices to help you hear and trust your inner wisdom, and offer you a safe space for self expression.

Sister Circles are a powerful opportunity for:

• Deep connection through sharing with others safely

• Embodiment and mindfulness practices to become grounded, clearer, more present

• Knowledge and insights about self care, wellbeing, personal growth and healing

• Cultivation of inner awareness and authenticity

• Improved mood, relationships and health

Our launch Sister Circle will be on Sunday 13 March 2022 from 6-830pm at Yogatown, 234 Almond Brook Road, Standish, WN6 0SS. Investment is £15 payable in advance to secure your place as places are limited.

Please message me to book your place or to ask any questions. You can also call me on 07944 655645. If I don’t pick up, please leave a message and I can return your call.

Meet your hosts:

Jan Normanton

I am a Transformational Touch Therapist, Embodiment Coach and Trauma Resolution Therapist with over 20 years of experience in helping clients to feel and get better through body therapies and more recently supporting clients to release trauma and come home to themselves through safe and informed touch therapy.

I bring relevant lived experience to my work, and along with years of studying, training and learning with a focus on recovery, healing and trauma resolution, my passion is to support women to reconnect to their true wisdom, reclaim their power and remember their beautiful innate true selves through safe and confidential embodiment work.

It is my wish that you will feel instantly welcome with both Jo and I as we hold a supportive and contained space for you to able to join us and immerse yourself fully in our Sister Circles.

Jo Carter

Hi. I'm a mother of 8, a qualified life coach and a trainee person-centred counsellor.

I believe that we all have an inner guidance system, but we have been taught to ignore or mistrust it.

I offer a wealth of research based knowledge and practical exercises to enable us to tap into our inner wisdom and learn to trust and love ourselves. When we experience unconditional love and complete understanding and acceptance of all parts of ourselves, we can learn to trust ourselves again. That's when we become our best selves and life really becomes worth living. ��

I look forward to welcoming ALL parts of you in the Sister Circle. ��❤️

What is emotional regulation and why does it matter during Covid19?

hello@cryo-massage.co.uk (Jan Normanton) — Sat, 30 May 2020 12:24:52 GMT

How much attention do we pay to our nervous system? How emotionally regulated are we and what does this mean?

We may all understand the significance of good healthy nutrition, regular exercise to keep us fit and healthy, endeavours such as meditation and mindfulness to keep our stress at bay, puzzles to keep our brain active and well as we age, however how much attention do we pay to our nervous system? How emotionally regulated are we and what does this mean?

By being in a good state and emotionally regulated, I am referring to my nervous system state. The sole purpose of our nervous system is to keep us safe and alive, and so is vigilant at all times about any sign of threat. How we manage stress in our daily lives under normal circumstances is personal to us all, however under the current unique circumstances, it is worth pointing out that our nervous system may be taking a battering, may be on high alert continuously and may therefore need our attention!

Our nervous system sends signals from our body to our brain about our internal state, which then sets off chemical responses from the brain, to prepare our body for the appropriate action. The chemicals released, based upon the messages sent from our body, will direct our thoughts, feelings and actions.

The messages from our nervous system signal either safety or danger and are triggered in many ways.

When we feel safe, generally we feel good, sociable, ‘ourselves’, all is well in our world. Based upon these positive messages from the body, the brain will instruct the release of appropriate chemicals and we’ll enjoy positive thoughts, good feelings and generally act accordingly. We get on with our lives feeling fine, purposeful, resilient.

The opposite is also true. If our nervous system feels under threat and signals this to our brain, different chemicals are released into the body to mobilise. These chemicals prepare our body to fight or to flee – the hormones adrenaline then cortisol are released into the bloodstream which raise our blood pressure, increase our heart rate, cause us to shallow breathe and divert our blood away from our core organs and intestines to our muscles, in readiness to take action to avoid the danger.

We may be in real danger and we may not. Significantly our brain does not know the difference between real threat and perceived threat. The same chemical reactions take place in the body, whether we are in real danger and someone has just cut us up on the motorway and risked a real accident for instance, or, whether we are watching our favourite soap opera and feeling drawn into the drama or hearing some bad or sad news from our neighbour about which we sympathise. Note the significance of this.

The body reacts in the same way, whether we are in real danger, or whether the brain perceives there to be danger. It releases the same stress chemicals.

If we are unable to flee or fight our way out of the situation, the body can then go into freeze mode. Essentially this is the body preparing for death. We feel powerless to evade the situation and the body prepares itself to die by shutting down our organs and systems. This can feel like depression, overwhelm, or withdrawal from others.

Generally we can work off these chemicals with little impact on our health. Indeed, we shift throughout the day between being in a state of ‘safe and social’ – when the nervous system feels safe in the absence of any real or perceived threat and all is well. We also drop into the ‘fight, flight’ nervous system state often, and this is fine – we need a bit of adrenaline to mobilise us, to get up in the morning, take action and get on with our lives!

The problem arises when we get caught up in a more permanent state of ‘flight, fight’ or ‘freeze’. If our nervous system continues to send such messages of threat to the brain, the brain sends the appropriate signals to the body to continue to release the chemicals adrenaline and cortisol, and with continuous production of these chemicals coursing round our body, the medium and longer term effects are negative, notably:

• Lowered immunity, meaning we can get sick quicker and more often, then find it hard to recover from illness.

• Impaired functioning of our internal organs over time.

• Inflammation which causes all sorts of unpleasant and unhealthy symptoms for us, at physical, mental, energetic and emotional levels.

The body is under stress and overwhelm, and common symptoms you may be experiencing at the moment might include:

• Physical –back pain, teeth grinding at night, painful joints, migraines, stomach problems, high blood pressure

• Mental – anxiety, insomnia, excessive worrying, difficulty in concentrating/remembering/decision making, drug use, drinking, smoking

• Emotional – depression, overwhelm, hopelessness, fearfulness, anger

• Energetic – lethargy, heaviness, lack of activity or the opposite: hyperactivity, restlessness, over activity.

We are living in unprecedented times and well out of our comfort zones during Covid19. Our nervous system may well be feeling overwhelmed, afraid, anxious in general, and this in itself causes emotional disregulation.

Crucial for now in particular therefore is to focus on bringing our internal state back into a safety, whenever we feel any sense that we are not. We do have control over how we feel, and we can bring ourselves back into emotional regulation.

It is easy to slip into a state of anxiety, simply by listening to and watching the news, and listening to bad news stories from our friends and family. Endlessly scrolling on social media is another sure fire way to become anxious, even though we may use this to try to distract ourselves from the sense of overwhelm and find some peace of mind or to make sense of this unfathomable situation.

It is important to recognise that all of these feelings and reactions are completely natural and normal under the current circumstances. Our nervous system is simply doing its job.

It is how we choose to react to these signals from our body that is key; whether we go down the one rabbit hole resulting in the above debilitating symptoms, or whether we choose to recognise what is happening, assess the situation (are we really in danger in this moment?), take control and manage the situation as best as we can. While we have no control over world and even local events, which is pretty horrendous in itself as we are used to having control and managing our lives and our selves and our families well, we do have control over how we manage our nervous system state.

We can opt to engage with the media hype, the news, the conspiracy theories, or we can choose to nurture and nourish ourselves with positive action that will de-stress us and build our resilience. Finding what brings you a sense of peace of mind and physical wellbeing will grow your resilience to support you at this time plus stand you in good stead for a life over which you have agency and can feel you direct.

Epictetus was a Greek philosopher who died in 135 AD and his famous quote ‘ It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters’ has stood the test of time and worth considering under our current circumstances.

When your eyelids are heavy, but your thoughts are heavier

hello@cryo-massage.co.uk (Jan Normanton) — Sat, 02 May 2020 17:20:14 GMT

If you’re having trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep, yoga nidra is a lovely way to ease into a state of deep relaxation in order to set yourself up for a restful night.

Yoga nidra means yogic sleep and induces the state between wakefulness and sleeping, and so can prepare the body and mind to deeply relax, relieve stress and aid with sleep.

A yoga nidra is a recording of verbal instructions which take us within to a state of consciousness. The practice encourages us to pay attention to our breath and shut off from our senses and the outside world, whilst we concentrate on the instructions. These run us gently through a body scan, enabling our wandering mind to keep focused and to keep going within.

Evidence has found this practice can reduce tension and anxiety as it supports our nervous system to drop into the relaxed state and out of our stress state of fight or flight, as well as increases dopamine. It induces one of the deepest states of relaxation possible whilst still being fully conscious.

I have been practising this specific beautiful yoga nidra by Devi Mohan for some weeks now and noticed a great improvement to the quality of my sleep. I have phases of insomnia and this practice has been wonderful! It is important to find a guided yoga nidra that suits you and if this one doesn’t, there are many fabulous yoga nidras on the following website: https://www.yoganidranetwork.org/

Support for Mental Health and Wellbeing

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 20:51:45 GMT

A list of helplines and online services offering support for anyone who might be struggling with their mental health or related issues at these difficult times.

The following is a list of resources that might be helpful as the weeks roll by under social isolation and for people who may be isolated and have less support structures in place than usual.

There are national numbers covering a range of issues, and all are free and confidential.

There are also a range of organisations listed with support anyone who might be struggling with their mental health or related issues at these difficult times.

Please print out this list, and share widely with friends and family. We may be unaware of what any of us are going through right now and this may support someone.

FREE PHONE National Numbers

Specific opening times may apply under COVID19

The Samaritans are a charity available 24 hours a day offering a free confidential listening service to anyone in distress or worried about someone else.

FREE PHONE: 116 123

The CALM helpline is for men in the UK who are down or have hit a wall for any reason, who need to talk or find information and support.

FREE PHONE: 0800 58 58 58

Victims Support helps anyone affected by crime, not only those who experience it directly, but also their friends, family and any other people involved.

FREE PHONE: 08 08 16 89 111

The National Gambling Helpline GAM-CARE provides confidential information, advice and support for anyone affected by problem gambling in the UK.

FREE PHONE 0808 0820 133

Step-Change offers free debt advice to help with immediate debt problems such as council tax, bailiffs, bills and loans to give you breathing space. They can help reduce debt including speaking with lenders and support with paperwork.

FREE PHONE: 0330 055 2198

NSPCC. If you're worried about a child, even if you're unsure, contact the NSPCC professional counsellors for help, advice and support. https://www.nspcc.org.uk/

FREE PHONE: 0808 800 5000

NSPCC Childline offers free, confidential advice and support for those 18 and under.

FREE PHONE CHILDLINE: 0800 1111

The Cruse Bereavement Care Free phone National Helpline is staffed by trained bereavement volunteers, who offer emotional support to anyone affected by bereavement.

FREE PHONE: 0808 808 1677

ONLINE RESOURCES

Mind www.mind.org.uk

Mind is a mental health charity working to make sure no one has to face a mental health problem alone.

Changetalks https://changetalks.org.uk/

Changetalks’ mission is to revolutionize the way we think, talk and act about mental health.

CALM https://www.thecalmzone.net/

Campaign Against Living Miserably is leading a movement against male suicide

for men aged 15-35.

Addaction www.addaction.org.uk/

One of the UK's leading drug, alcohol and mental health charities.

FRANK https://www.talktofrank.com/

Talk to Frank is a national drug education service.

Turning Point http://www.turning-point.co.uk/

Turning Point is a social enterprise, focused on improving lives and communities.

Papyrus.uk https://papyrus-uk.org/

If you are a young person at risk of suicide or are worried about a young person at risk of suicide.

0800 068 41 41

OCD Action https://www.ocdaction.org.uk/

Provides support and information for anybody affected by OCD.

Elefriends https://www.elefriends.org.uk/

Elefriends is a supportive online community where you can be yourself.

Citizens Advice Bureau https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/

Provide free, independent, confidential and impartial advice to everyone on their rights and responsibilities.

Big White Wall https://www.bigwhitewall.com/

24/7 online and anonymous support for mental health.

Time to Change www.time-to-change.org.uk/

An organisation working to reduce the stigma and discrimination experienced by individuals with mental health issues.

Mental Health Foundation Online advice and information about mental health and wellbeing. www.mentalhealth.org.uk/

SANE is a leading UK mental health charity, working to improve the quality of life for anyone affected by mental illness.www.sane.org.uk

RETHINK offers practical help on issues such as the Mental Health Act, community care, welfare benefits and carers rights, as well as general help on living with mental illness, medication and care. https://www.rethink.org/

Helpline: 0300 5000 927 (charges may apply)

Anxiety UK’s infoline service offers an advice line to anybody affected by anxiety, stress and/or anxiety based depression, their family, friends, loved ones and professionals, including parents of children with anxiety. https://www.anxietyuk.org.uk/

Helpline: 03444 775 774 (charges may apply)

BEAT is the UK's leading charity for eating disorders. They offer a range of support services including a helpline and lots of information and advice. https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/

Helpline: 0808 801 0677 (charges may apply).

The time to relax is when you have no time

hello@cryo-massage.co.uk (Jan Normanton) — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 16:11:53 GMT

Stressed, always in a rush, always on the back burner? Head spinning with the ever increasing list of things to do?

It’s easy to get caught on the hamster wheel of life…I’ve just spent 5 days in bed.. unfortunately not with some hunky chap but a nasty bout of flu! Not only did I have to cancel a bunch of clients; I missed out on a great BBQ today and a hiking trip in the Lakes tomorrow. To add insult to injury, I got a letter through the post yesterday stating I’d exceeded the speed limit in my area last Friday and I now need to go on one of those speed awareness courses, or pay a lot of money and get points on my licence! The irony is, I was driving to my yoga class!!! And the greater irony I now realise is, my body recognised the signs of me going too fast. I was feeling the panic rising in myself last week, with a never ending list of tasks getting longer all the while. And yet, I chose to ignore the signs.

Stress takes its toll on the body, mind and spirit and can leave us feeling constantly exhausted and worse still over time if left unchecked, can result in illness.

Our bodies becomes physically tired if we don’t take time to rest and recuperate; it can also cause physical pain and discomfort such as migraines and muscular tension, not to mention compromising the autonomic processes within the body such as digestion and the immune system. This can lead to our minds feeling overwhelmed and unable to switch off, probably with insomnia to boot. This in turn can cause emotional turmoil, anxiety, stress and a sense of helplessness. Which feeds into the exhaustion and physical distress and so sets in motion a vicious circle whereby our whole system is depleted with no foreseeable respite.

In the longer term, stress can have more serious adverse effects on the body such as auto immune diseases, depression and further health complications.

Trying to combat this with caffeine, sugar, alcohol - all quick fixes to alleviate the pain and fatigue, bring along their own list of more adverse effects on the body, mind and soul, and can perpetuate this vicious circle. These are short term measures and similar to sticking a plaster on a whopping great wound in the hope that it will go away yet that really requires medical attention. Equally, going into denial mode and ploughing on through is no remedy. I’ve frankly made myself ill and committed a driving offence, all in a bid to beat the clock and keep ahead of my game.
We can break that negative cycle and turn this into a virtuous circle – by incorporating positive strategies that will support us to manage our stress in a healthier and more sustainable way.

Exercise, good nutrition, mindfulness, improved sleep, making action lists that are manageable for us using the SMART technique (specific, manageable, achievable, realistic, time focused) are great tools to support our systems and create solid foundations from the inside out. Just as important though as I have discovered to my detriment, is scheduling time for fun and enjoyable activities, and in particular scheduling time for rest – crucial in our time strapped lives, especially when we think we don’t have the time...

Taking care of ourselves first and foremost is not selfish, it’s ‘selfing’ – we are supporting ourselves in order to go out into the world and give our very best. So when we find ourselves on that dreaded hamster wheel of lacking the time to do what is important to us, it’s time to take stock. We cannot give from an empty cup! Let’s replenish our own!

Manage Fibromyalgia through massage

Mon, 29 Oct 2018 07:00:00 GMT

Fibromyalgia sucks the life out of sufferers…

Fibromyalgia is a difficult and chronic condition that can severely reduce quality of life for sufferers. Fibromyalgia causes pain throughout the whole body, varying from sharp and shooting to enduring deep boned aching, which can occur at any time. Painful areas can develop in the soft tissue around the joints known as tenderpoints.

Unfortunately Fibromyalgia is an enduring condition; the pain and symptoms need to be managed rather than cured. Whilst pain relief is available widespread through prescription medications, these can cause their own problems in addition to the condition itself.

Sufferers often seek alternative ways to manage this condition and increasingly are turning to more natural and healthier ways to do so. Therapeutic massage can provide an excellent means of pain management, and for good reason.

The complex range of symptoms manifesting in the body, as well as its negative impact on the mind and emotions can be addressed and improved upon uniquely through the one healing medium of massage therapy. Massage is natural so has none of the nasty side effects that medication can present and which can become problematic to manage in their own right.

The Holy Grail of Sleep…

A further significant feature of this condition is the overwhelming and debilitating fatigue experienced by sufferers, thought to be due to the impact of lack of appropriate and sufficient sleep.

Sleep can be something of a holy grail for those with the condition as they often find it difficult to get to sleep and can also be kept awake throughout the night because of the pain. Because of these irregular sleeping patterns, they can often miss the phase of sleep known as REM (rapid eye movement) which is crucial for good health and wellbeing.

It is during this stage of sleep that the body strengthens the immune system, repairs and restores tissues and builds bone and muscle. This phase of sleep is also integral to the process of balancing our mood, and the cognitive processes of storing memories and learning.

Without this phase of sleep, sufferers are prone to headaches and brain fog - mental confusion afflicting memory and cognitive understanding. The body’s immune system can become and/or remain weak and the body heals from injury and sickness less effectively and efficiently.

This lack of vital sleep may be one of the key contributors to the perpetuation of symptoms, not least the relentless continuation of pain. A vicious cycle is set in motion. Pain deprives sufferers of sleep which perpetuates the pain…. Sleep deprivation is also known to increase the levels of proteins that initiate and sustain chronic pain. So there is scant relief from pain for sufferers.

Getting a good night’s sleep can offer one significant contribution to breaking the cycle of the distressing impact of its absence and to giving the sufferer’s mind and body a break from the chronic pain. This might offer a glimmer of hope to improving symptoms.

And yet more symptoms….

Further symptoms can include IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), headaches and poor circulation resulting in tingling and numbness.

A high proportion of sufferers are likely to be managing co-morbidities such as lupus, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, not to mention significant adverse mental health conditions such as depression, stress and anxiety.

Manage Fibromyalgia without medication…

Massage can provide blessed relief from the physical pain endured by sufferers. Sufferers are sensitive to physical pressure, and as pain receptors are located at the surface of the skin, sufferers can benefit from the soothing, nurturing, healing touch afforded by massage. The message is conveyed from the skin receptors to the brain that this touch is positive, therapeutic, feels good and so can break the cycle of pain so prevalent in Fibromyalgia.

It is thought that Substance P, a brain chemical that stimulates pain receptors in the body, is overactive in Fibromyalgia sufferers and so these elevated levels may greatly increase the perception of pain. Massage is thought to reduce levels of Substance P, and thus afford pain relief.

The breath and heart rate slow down and blood pressure lowers during massage, thus inducing instant deep relaxation in the body.

Exercise can prove difficult for sufferers, the disadvantage being muscles lose their tone and efficacy and joints can become stiff. Massage can include mobilisation of the joints, thus improving flexibility and increasing their range of movement. Muscles and soft tissues are stretched out and tension is eased whilst muscle tone is enhanced. Tenderpoints are prevalent in sufferers - localised areas of pain around the joints known to be particularly painful and this pain can be relieved through massage.

Improved blood circulation removes toxins whilst providing all parts of the body with freshly oxygenated and nutrient rich blood. This improved blood flow offers further numerous benefits; it can relieve the physical cause of headaches, reduce the numbness and tingling of limbs, and reduce inflammation, a major cause of pain. Improved lymph flow also plays its role in transporting white blood cells to the body more efficiently, thus improving the body’s immune system.

Cortisol, a hormone produced by the body to manage anxiety and stress can in turn perpetuate anxiety and stress when the body is under constant stress. Massage removes this from the body effectively, whilst endorphins, the feel good chemicals, are stimulated through massage. These natural painkillers can afford the sufferer both instant pain relief as well as an elevated sense of wellbeing and bring about clarity and peace of mind.

There is scientific evidence that massage therapy can reduce pain and improve healing. These physical improvements impact positively on the brain to enhance one’s mood and sense of wellbeing. Massage works positively on all the systems of the body and so brings the body into balance. Soothing, therapeutic touch breaks the cycle of pain and replaces pain producing chemicals with pleasure giving ones. As such massage therapy can provide an excellent alternative to managing the difficult symptoms of Fibromyalgia whilst sparing sufferers from the additional burden of prescribed medication.

The Power of Love - The Power of Touch

Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMT

We all recognise the signs of being in love.

Those in love look happy, ecstatic even! They seem to be brimming with a positive glow, in prime health! There is a raft of known health benefits for those lucky enough to ‘be in love’. For all those who aren’t, the good news is the same health benefits can be derived from hugging and chatting with good friends and family, cuddling pets and getting a massage!

I work in a residential care home delivering massage therapy to the residents and I love to witness the power of touch in action. Many of the residents cannot speak, some have dementia, some have had a stroke. The medium of touch is powerful and can provide a vital and healthy addition to verbal communication. For some of these residents who cannot speak, touch is a significant and life affirming alternative.

Imagine being locked in a world where you cannot communicate verbally as for some of my clients in the residential care home. Where you are fed, bathed, toileted, hoisted around. Oftentimes not necessarily with much care and attention either, through no fault of the carers who are likely to be under pressure to complete their duties within a specific period of time.
When I massage these clients, there is a form of bonding, of communion between myself and the client. I can provide that attention and human connection that is vitally missing for these folk through the power of touch. At the same time my clients are receiving the whole host of health benefits outlined below that otherwise they would not get.

Touch can be healing and transformative

The body of evidence on the benefits of positive platonic touch is convincing.

Touch contributes to a greater sense of wellbeing as it triggers chemical changes that relax the body including dopamine and oxytocin. A hug releases oxytocin, a hormone so powerful it can anesthetize a new mother into feeling less pain when she breastfeeds (perhaps only mums who breastfeed or have breastfed can relate to that pain…!). Regular release of oxytocin, known as ‘the bonding hormone’ also inspires trust, generosity and empathy.

Touch can have an even greater impact than words on physical and emotional wellbeing - given touch can lower blood pressure, slow the heart and regulate breathing, thereby reducing stress.

Touch can boost the immune system. It can reduce the amount of cortisol in the body which is a by product of adrenaline and can affect the body adversely over time if it is not processed from the body.

A hug can stimulate the thymus gland, which regulates and balances the body’s production of white blood cells, which work to keep us healthy and free from disease by fighting off viruses.

And yet, we seem to be operating in a world that fosters less physical contact.

Positive touch is good for us and society!

When is the last time you touched someone in a caring way – hugged, cuddled, kissed someone? Touch is a fundamental need of humans and one that seems increasingly missing in many peoples’ life.

It may be due to circumstance. Often the first things to go when we are stressed, in a rush, so busy as we all seem to be these days, are the little shows of love, support and encouragement for our partners and our kids.

Technology has many great advantages; however screens of all electronic kinds present even further barriers and can cut us off from our own species and can keep us segregated in a virtual world.

We might avoid contact with others due to environment. On a busy commuter train or bus, we seek some personal space, some distance from our fellow travellers; hide behind a book or a screen, avoiding eye contact and any form of communication. Or we drive to and from work in our cars, in isolation.

Increasingly, people are living alone. Statistics show the number of middle aged people living alone has risen significantly (ONS data shows 2.43 million 45-64 year olds living on their own in 2017 compared with 1.59 million in 1996). Notwithstanding there are simply many more middle aged people from the baby boom years of the 60s; divorce rates are higher and marriage is on the decline. However, older people living alone fair less well health-wise than married couples.

Men in particular are impacted adversely by the higher divorce rates which result in living alone and being chronically deprived of healthy, life affirming touch. Living in a culture that dictates men are strong, independent, self sufficient can mean men become isolated and withdrawn. Failing to reach out to others if they experience stress and difficulties with emotions can in turn can make matters worse for them, leaving them open to depression and anxiety and potentially at risk if they resort to unhealthy coping strategies such as drinking, drug taking and other forms of escapism and denial, thus perpetuating the vicious circle of isolation.

There is evidence that the absence of physical bonding in children from their primary caregivers can result in lifelong emotional disturbances. Moreover, a study from 2002 found that “cultures that exhibited minimal physical affection toward their young children had significantly higher rates of adult violence,” Whilst “those cultures that showed significant amounts of physical affection toward their young children had virtually no adult violence.”

Humans are sentient beings. Touch is vital to feel whole, healthy, balanced. Otherwise there can be disconnect, a sense of separateness and loneliness. Social isolation can lead to health risks and a higher mortality rate. Today more than ever it is vital to seek some form of positive touch with others.

Get your fix of positive touch!

I am fortunate enough to have a young son at home to hug every day and as often as I can. It’s natural for him to want less cuddle time with me as he grows and gains independence so that may not last forever! And I too am guilty of forgetting the importance of hugs as we go about our busy lives.

So as well as meeting up with friends and family on a regular basis, I make sure to book in a regular massage for myself! Texting and speaking on the phone doesn’t really count as it’s the power of touch that triggers all the great health benefits. Massage is one of the most simple and effective ways to gain these and as such is a powerful form of self care.

The benefits of massage therapy for stroke recovery

Sun, 07 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMT

My friend’s husband suffered from a stroke recently and he is still in hospital so I’ve been massaging him weekly for some time now.

Whilst his care is okay from the NHS, he is getting physiotherapy only twice a week. The rest of the time he is bedbound and pretty static, being supported to move only to go to the bathroom and for limited physical therapy.

The key to recovery for stroke patients is movement and work towards regaining as much independence as possible , no matter how little or inconsequential it may seem. As recovery progresses, increased safe physical activity is key on the journey to ultimately living life as fully as possible again.

While every stroke is unique, there are a number of common effects of a stroke and massage therapy can support stroke patients in a number of ways to contribute towards their recovery, including potential improvement to overall function and muscle re-education, as well as decreased aches, pain and inflammation, increased range of motion and muscle strengthening, decreased spasticity and water retention and a better state of mind.

Increase motor function

One of the main issues for stroke patients is the loss of muscle control in certain muscle groups. As the stroke occurs in the brain, the oxygen supply is cut off and nerve cells die, causing the muscle motor units to specific muscle groups (motor neurons that connect to muscle fibres) to cease to work efficiently and effectively. Over time if left unchecked, a condition known as learned non-use develops, whereby the affected muscle groups on the one side of the body cease to work and these muscles lose all tone. At the same time the muscles on the other side of the body over develop as they are used to compensate for the non-use side of the body.

The lack of sensation causing paralysis experienced in limbs by some stroke patients can be overcome through stimulation of the senses, using a variety of techniques and supported by massage therapy. This is known as sensory re-education, retraining the mind to connect to the sensations felt in the affected limbs.
A further technique supported by massage therapy is known as neuroplasticity which rewires the brain to connect to the muscles to re-introduce movement. Massage can support that reconnection along with passive stretching and mobilisation of the joints. The key is repeated practice until movement may become active.

Decrease pain and cramps

Sitting and lying for long periods of time causes stiffness , aches and pains. Massage can reduce pain, swelling and stiffness of the joints through mobilisation and incorporating gentle and passive exercise. This movement and manipulation can remove the build up of lactic acid occurring at the joints which causes the pain, as well as aid in the removal of water retention in the lower limbs. Massage can stretch and soften all tissues and muscles, thereby releasing stiffness and alleviating cramps and pain.

Manage hyper / hypo tonia

Massage is excellent for reducing hyper tone in the muscles which can cause rigidity and pain in some stroke patients. It can reduce excessive tension and spasms in these muscles whilst promoting deep relaxation. Equally, massage can improve hypo tone ie weakness occurring in stroke patients when the muscle tone diminishes rapidly due to under use. Massage can nourish these muscles and improve muscle elasticity and tone.

Improve circulation

Circulation is crucial to keep the blood flowing – to bring freshly oxygenated and nutrient rich blood to all parts of the body, whilst encouraging removal of toxins through the circulatory systems – veins and the lymphatic system which both rely on movement to get the lymph and blood (containing waste) moving.

Massage is a perfect means to do this for who finds themselves static for lengthy periods of time.

Decrease anxiety and depression

A further known symptom of a stroke is depression and anxiety, and massage can aid prevention as it releases and distributes serotonin throughout the body, one of the feel good chemicals produced naturally by the body, whilst eliminating cortisol a stress hormone from the body.

Improving one’s overall mental well-being is crucial in supporting the body to heal – attitude impacts on effort, and ultimately effort is required to use the body as much as possible to return to independence.

Stress and anxiety can result in a diminished immune system so it is vital for a stroke patient to maintain a strong and balanced immune system particularly in hospital.

Make massage part of a multi-disciplinary approach on the road to rehabilitation

Massage therapy will not increase a person’s risk of another stroke, however certain precautions would need to be addressed such as the presence of blood clots and/or the patient taking blood thinning medication, which would be a covered by a full client history. Permission from the stroke patient’s consultant to carry out massage would be sought.

There are many varying impacts and degrees of impact to a stroke and every stroke has a different effect on every single patient, and massage therapy can be adapted to suit the needs of the individual.

Whilst massage therapy cannot not provide a cure for strokes, as part of a multi disciplinary approach working alongside a range of other therapists, massage therapy can offer the benefits outlined above that can make a significant contribution to the rehabilitation process for stroke patients.

Been for your forest bathe lately?

Wed, 19 Sep 2018 00:00:00 GMT

To you and I, a tramp through your local woods…. Easily enough done, yet easy to forget how wonderful it feels and more so easy perhaps to feel too busy to bother in the first place; so perhaps not that easy…! There is evidence to suggest now though that a “forest bathe” is a great form of therapy, for the mind, body and soul!

While the benefits of regular exercise, especially outside and in nature are known, a growing body of research is evidencing the benefits to mental wellbeing and health from exposure to forest and woodland environments in particular. Known as shinrin-yoki ( http://www.shinrin-yoku.org/shinrin-yoku.html ), this is a well researched type of therapy developed in Japan in the 1980's and forms the foundation of preventative healthcare and healing in Japanese medicine.

When I'm not massaging my lovely clients I get out in my local woods ( https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/wood/10316/elnup-wood/ ) and having just returned from a decent tramp, I can vouch for all those benefits! It’s simply an assault on all senses in the most positive way.

A true sight for sore eyes, absorbing the lush verdant leaves all around, the brown earthy hues of the soil and tree trunks, the glimmers of glorious blue sky through the canopies of leaf coverage and if you’re lucky enough, the sunbeams filtering through the gaps creating an unearthly, mystical forest magic to the whole scene.

The lovely bird song, rushes of breezes through the trees sounding almost like the sea, the ebb and flow of the tide, the rushing of the waves, the rhythmic swaying of the branches swaying in the wind. All music to the ears tired of traffic, music, radio, that internal infernal voice even…

Smells of the forest enhance the experience - the earthy soil and the catches of scent of some flower or other, as does the feel of the sunlight on your skin, the soft breeze across your face and fresh air moving your hair and blowing away the cobwebs... The enforced deeper breathing means you are almost ingesting the air you take in, using it as nourishment to feed your way – tasting life itself in all its glory!

Forest bathing forces you to be present. You have to tend to your step to avoid the tree roots, the unexpected dips of the uneven pathway, to pay attention to your footfall if you want to avoid the nettles. You are scanning your horizon almost sub consciously, plotting your next move and direction. You are half aware of your entire surroundings, checking are you safe, is anyone around.

However, you are also soaking in the pure presence, of being in the moment. It is almost a meditation in motion, if you allow it. If you can let the relentless chatter in your mind switch off for a while and focus on the job in hand, tramping through the woods, you are in a state of pure mindfulness. A far more easy exercise in mediation than the formal version, for me at least. And I like to use these tramps as just that, as a walking meditation.

The body is getting a fine work out, the mind is idling in a semi meditative state and the soul is soaring from taking in the blissful benefits of nature’s bounty all around via all five senses. This reflects the precise state of what is known as ‘flow’ in positive psychology, the ideal state that according to its founder Mihaly Csikszentmihályi, makes our lives more happy, creative and successful. One you might recognise as ‘being in the zone’.

While part of the brain that manages stress can get over stimulated in urban and city environments, natural environments soothe this, producing positive changes such as a lowering of blood pressure and adrenaline in the body resulting in a reduction in physical stress and depression, to name but a few of the many improvements for the body, mind and spirit.

It seems the added bonus to walking through forest and woodland is that certain trees and plants secrete chemicals known as phytoncides which have a known beneficial impact upon humans linked to improved immune defence as they inhale the smells! Notable plants include garlic and pine so get yourself down to Fairy Glen in Parbold ( http://www.westlancs.gov.uk/leisure-recreation/parks-and-countryside/parks-and-countryside-sites/fairy-glen-appley-bridge.aspx ) for the wild garlic and/or Formby beach forest reserve ( https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/formby ) for the pine trees, both in abundance!

So what’s not to like about forest bathing?! It’s free, and if you’re lucky enough, local to you. As if you needed any more reasons to get down to the woods and thrill in the experience of being immersed in nature! You might want to try it some time, and the next time, approach it with a different perspective!