Why should I believe personal change is possible?

What’s the deal with the nervous system? Why do people keep saying the body keeps the score? What is Somatic Therapy anyway? Is it an esoteric thing or a neuroscience thing? What happens if I start working on myself from the bottom up? How do I keep going if my progress has stalled in psycho-therapy? Why should I believe personal change is possible?

I’m curious about these questions, too.

This is a space for the curious. If we can be curious, it means we are at least somewhat present. If we are at least somewhat present, change can happen. Let’s aim for a space where change can happen, where how to create change is explored, where the means of making change happen are supported and demystified. 

I came to my own desire for change in my life without much hope. How do you change when the trauma that happened is so big and so far in the past--for me, losing my mom to brain cancer when I had just turned twelve. How can one recover from such a loss? And all that came before this loss and all that came after? I could not imagine change, fundamental change, change into being a person who experienced peace and joy and connection without a nagging sense of sadness or doom. I could not imagine. 

I finally came to find somatic therapy in 2015, quite by accident. I went to see Shel Wagner Rasch (now my amazing mentor) for Alexander Technique, a movement-based modality she also practices. As I remember, we did very little movement assessment before Shel could tell that what I really needed was attention for my nervous system. She invited me to lay on the massage table. She slid her hands under my back and cradled my body. I could feel her support, her attention. We talked and we were silent. I’m sure I cried, as was typical while feeling anything at the time. I can’t recall all the details from that initial session, but I vividly remember leaving feeling like this is the thing that ACTUALLY changes your life. This is the missing piece to how I could ACTUALLY change. I was partly skeptical and partly more hopeful than I had ever been.

In short order, I set out to be a practitioner like Shel, a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) who also offers touchwork. I could feel how very powerful this combination worked both explicitly and implicitly in my being, and I wanted to offer this profound change to other beings. I was already at my wits’ end in my career as a Librarian--I was ready for transformative change.  

First, I had some work to do. Over the next two-plus years, I worked regularly with Shel. It was not always comfortable, but I learned that pushing the edge of my discomfort let my nervous system EXPERIENCE that I did not die when I felt this challenge, in fact, I grew stronger. After some time, I felt like I could confidently say I had grown into an entirely new nervous system experience. I went from overwhelmed and shut down at even small bits of stimulation or conflict, to feeling confident and strong in expressing myself, my emotions, my likes and dislikes, my wants and desires. It was a huge shift.

I wanted to practice Somatic Experiencing with touchwork, like Shel, so I decided to go to school for bodywork. I chose IPSB (Institute for Psycho-Structural Balancing, it’s all in the name, really) because I connected with the instructors at the open house, and I loved the approach of working with Tai Chi to generate energy for exchange with another body rather than depleting one’s own energy. While at IPSB, I discovered Craniosacral Therapy through courses with Gary Strauss. I felt that SE plus Cranio would be a powerful combination for support and transformation.
 
Midway through my studies, the Covid pandemic hit in 2020. Classes went online. Practitioners went online. I waited. Eventually, I felt versed enough in working virtually from so many practice sessions in class that I thought to launch my practice online, why not? I had not conceived of working virtually, it was a strange gift of the pandemic. Now, I continue to offer sessions online anywhere which clients seem to like and sometimes favor--tracking sensations, emotions, and memories with verbal feedback from the convenience of home with pets and familiar comforts. I feel fortunate for this turn of events since now I get to support people who might have a difficult time traveling to see me in person or people at a great distance. I was grateful to return to in-person work, even with masks for a time, and I continue to offer sessions both online and in person. I am consistently amazed at the good, deep work we can do even at a distance.

It’s truly my honor to be in private practice offering Somatic Experiencing and Craniosacral Therapy since 2021. I know what it is like to believe my stuff is too big to change. It continues to be humbling, gratifying, and fun for me to offer transformative change to others.

 

In this newsletter, I aim to share more about my personal journey finding a new experience of my nervous system, a new way to live, in addition to diving deeper into what I mean by Somatic Therapy anyway? How does it work? What does a session involve? How can this work be done at a distance, online, if it is through the body? What’s the nervous system? I’ll also offer tools for your personal transformation and discovery. Let’s see where we wander. I’m curious. 

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Join me here if you too, are on a journey to change your life for the better. If you are curious.

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