When I first started my healing journey, I didn't know I was going to end up down the path of holistic counselling. In the early days, I was obsessed with science. I wanted to know what was the proven method that I could experience and offer that would heal me and my my clients. I did my research and found a psychologist who thought like me. She had a 12 week program designed to break the cycle of anxiety through education, evidence-based practices and talk therapy. I was sold. This was going to be my ticket to healing. I was completing my Master of Counselling at the time and was very keen to work with someone who was where I wanted to be, or so I thought.
As I began the work with her, we went through each of the steps in our weekly sessions for the next 3 months. We did breath work, hypnotherapy, emotional release, traditional counselling and even some education based sessions. It was all moving along to the therapists timeline. But not to mine. While this approach might sound holistic, it was definitely integrating a variety of evidence-based techniques to support my healing, it was missing some integral parts that I needed. It had discounted the significance of the mind, body, spirit connection and the fact that healing the whole self, is very rarely a linear process.
In an holistic counselling session at TEMPLE you can expect to explore who you are on a deep soul level. There is a beautiful saying from Annette Noontil that says, 'The body is the barometer of the soul' and this has been my experience of healing too. The body stores so much emotional energy through muscle tension, habitual nervous system patterns, hormonal imbalances, patterns of movement and body holding that can perpetuate cycles of pain completely unconsciously. You will be guided to feel into your body's guidance through somatic practices to what is present for healing in each session. The reason this is so powerful is because most of us have over stimulated minds. We live in our heads. We have the tendency to ruminate, judge, expect, attribute meaning, shame, blame and seek external validation when we only engage the mind for healing. When it comes from the body, the information has come from inside of you. You are leading the healing and not being told by a therapist what is or isn't happening. It is a process that reconnects you to the wisdom that already exists within you.
That is not to say that we discount the mind and it's role in healing. Once the body has revealed its message, the mind becomes vital to the integration process as you begin to make sense of what has been revealed. In our sessions we will work with cultivating an inner voice of self-compassion that can support you on your healing journey. It can be painful to look upon our wounds, but we heal them by bringing them into the light and showering them with love and acceptance.
By tapping into the gift of compassion, it is possible to deepen your relationship to the divine within. To see ourselves as the imperfect humans we are and offer ourselves unconditional acceptance and compassion in the face of that, broadens our capacity to do so for others. This is what is meant by 'when we heal ourselves, we heal the world'. Through experiencing an holistic counselling practice that supports you in developing self-compassion, you have the potential to see the interconnectedness of all through our shared suffering and our infinite potential to heal.
If this sounds like something you would like to experience for yourself, head over to the booking section at the top of this page to check for availability. Sessions are 60 minutes long and available in person or online. Or, if you'd like to chat further about whether this type of counselling is right for you, click the 'get in touch' tab and I'll reach out to you personally. I so look forward to working with you.
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