Welcome all parts of yourself
'Especially the painful ones... Welcoming these parts.. without sounding the alarm, pressing eject, without overanalysing, or replaying the origin story. But tuning into the sensations and wisdom in my body and staying curious. This has been my real work'
Someone who continues to be a mentor and guide in my life and for this work is Donna Lancaster. You can check her out on my podcast She talks about arrested development - all the pivotal times and ages that we experience trauma. Meaning of the things that happened to us over the years that happened so fast that we didn’t get time to process. Five years old when your father left, ten years old when you got bullied at school, 15 when you had your first heartbreak… fill in the gaps with whatever is true for you.
'It doesn’t really matter if your brain understands it, if your body doesn’t believe it'
The body holds the memory of all of this and breathwork, for me has been a powerful way to start unwinding and releasing somatically.
In my healing experience, I did some really brilliant and transformational therapy, but it wasn’t until I started breathing like this that I started really shifting it through my body.
There are some great resources for this work:
When the Body Says ‘No’ by Dr Gabor Mate,
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk MD,
Waking the Tiger: Healing trauma by Peter A. Levine + Anne Frederick
What Happened to You? by Oprah Winfrey and Bruce D. Perry
So grateful for this practice, and for the wisdom both within.. and from incredible pioneers of this work.
If you’re on the path and they aren’t on your radar yet, check them out.
Ps. Donna’s first book The Bridge: A nine step crossing into authentic and wholehearted living is a must read.