Feeling good – Page 2 – A Body Psychotherapist's Journal

Shake it up, baby! On doing morning releasing exercises as a practice

If I am unwilling or unable to feel my emotions as they are happening, then I have to do something to keep them from being in my consciousness. So I tense my musculature, tighten and constrict so that nothing gets through.

Okay, so today is only Day Three, and maybe that’s a little early to be making any statements about this new practice of mine. I am trying to commit to a 28 day practice of engaging in the sequence of bioenergetic exercises that David Bercelli has pulled together and labeled “Trauma Releasing Exercises.” Click here to go to his website: trauma prevention

I’m not sure I entirely accept all of the claims made by the proponents of the method but I do know that the first part of the series is profoundly grounding and the second part opens up the opportunity for the body to discharge a lot of energy in the form of movement. I also know that when I work through a stress-release, stress-release sequence of movements, I usually can feel a lot more and mostly I feel better.

The FEELING more is what counts for me. I am pretty good at shutting things down in my organism, i.e., my body. I look quite contained and relaxed, and situations and events do not visibly distress me. I also have chronic tension in my neck and shoulders (my physiotherapist would just shake her head at this point) and sometimes stomach upsets and sometimes trouble with sleeping. If I am unwilling or unable to feel my emotions as they are happening, then I have to do something to keep them from being in my consciousness. So I tense my musculature, tighten and constrict so that nothing gets through. Not feelings, not energy, and if I am particularly tight, I can even limit the flow of fluids through my tissues. And I am not alone in this: many people are expert at this sort of shutting down. So opening up is a good thing!

On the weekend, I was delighted to have a group of bioenergetic therapists and trainees visiting me in my home and office. We shared a lot of good ideas and some of our particular interests. Margaret Bernard of PEI led our group through the TRE and that was a great reminder for me that daily bodywork is really a must for me to stay connected to myself. I can readily connect with my thinking parts but find connecting with the feeling parts takes more attention. TRE helps me to bring that attention and also to let go of the holding and constriction.

So in only three days, I’m noticing that my feet are connecting to the ground differently. I have increased flexibility in my toes, which is a bigger deal that you think. Toes are a critical connector to the ground, and thus when we have good movement in our toes, they can hold on better. Really! Take off your shoes and try it. Squinch up your toes and try to walk around. Yes, really do it. Do it until your feet have some intensity of feeling in them, say, a seven out of ten. (Intensity, also known as PAIN!!!) Then mindfully spread out your toes on the floor, feeling everything (relief?) and try walking with all of them active and engaged. Aahhh……thank you, toes.

Nicer toes than mine....flexible looking! creatve commons — Nicer toes than mine….flexible looking! creative commons

So toes. That’s good. I also notice that when the vibrations get going,, I can let them move quite readily up my body but that things get hung up at my diaphragm and throat. This is not new news to me; I know that I have blocks there, pretty typical ones from childhood. But when I allow myself to make a sound with those vibrations, the blocks ease up a bit. And when the sound starts to soar, almost like it isn’t part of me, then my body opens up to laughing and sobbing and all sorts of spontaneous movement. It is very cool.

I stay aware in this process, too, because I know that these kinds of unusual movements often permit the free flow of thoughts, memories, images, and sensations in the body-mind. This is access to my unconscious, and I don’t want to miss a thing! What I have found is that after I am finished (and how to decide to be “finished?”), I sit to write in my journal and the ideas are also flowing….ideas about so many things, not just the constricted content of my usual thoughts. Who knew that bioenergetic exercise would also open up my thinking self?

I’ll keep doing my daily practice and let you know how it proceeds. In the meantime, you can do TRE also…there are books and videos available from that website and also therapists and bodyworkers who are trained to help you learn the sequence. You can find a practitioner on the website. You can also just follow your body into movement and charge and discharge, but I know that can be harder to do than it sounds. Let me know how you do! Below is a video about TRE.

TRE video

Who’s in charge of your life? on not letting mood dictate your behaviour

I wonder how often I attribute my choices to my mood? “I wasn’t in the mood to do the dishes,” for example. Or, “I’d exercise more, but I’m just not in the mood.” When I think this way, it is almost as if my mood is something outside of me, or something that comes over me without my awareness, knowledge, or permission. And then I give it the power to decide whether I’ll do the dishes or exercise.

Or maybe (MAYBE) I let my mood dictate my behaviors because I don’t want to take responsibility for my choices. Somehow it would not be as okay to claim the choice to sit on my couch and not do something.

We often feel like we are subject to the whims of our internal lives, as if our moods and emotions rule us. I don’t think we were constructed that way: I think that moods and emotions are information for us but they are not masters and we their slaves. But when we just react our way through our days without even really noticing our inner life, then it may feel like our feelings are running US.

How do we get out of that? How do we get to take charge of our own lives?

We first have to have awareness of our thoughts, our feelings, and our body sensations. We need to be able to notice our vitality affects, for example (energy level), and notice sensations of prickling, tightness, openness or lightness, whateer sensations are present. We need to be attuned to our own selves as well as to the world around us, and that means that sometimes we have to turn down the stimulation and just check inside ourselves.

Atmospheric phenomenon to which we attribute meaning

Pay attention to the shift in your emotion, no matter how small. When you notice yourself getting more upset or distressed, ask yourself, “What am I telling myself right now?” or “What is making me feel upset?” It is likely a thought which has occurred to you. But how might you feel if that thought had not occurred to you?

In other words, how would you feel if you didn’t believe that thought?

Ah….maybe I’d feel just fine, thank you very much.

Conversely, the body can give us messages that we interpret to mean something. The other day, I felt fabulous…had just finished a long walk with a little running, was working a positive inner dialogue about my progress, was able to notice the trees, the air, the birds…all those things that contribute to my personal sense of well-being (your list will be different). Suddenly I found myself irritated at some minor frustration, very irritated. Wait! How did I get from feeling fabulous to feeling irritated? I checked in on my thoughts, my experiences, and by body sensations and yes, there it was…the tiniest little bit of aching in my groin from running. The endorphin flow had slowed, I could start to feel the work that my joints had done, it was painful though only slightly….and suddenly I was easily irritated. And probably underlying that body ache was some automatic thought…”Oh, this again,” or “Ugh, I hurt,” or “I don’t feel so good,” and so irritation happened.

Mood is a number of things but whether we let our moods dictate our lives is a personal choice. If I only did things when I felt like it, well, I’d have some pretty severe limits on my life! So I choose to watch my thoughts and remember that thoughts, mood, and feelings are all part of my body, and they all are fluid and shifting…so I might as well live my life and let my mood catch up with me.

When Pleasure Fails

Dr. Scott Baum, in his paper “When Love Avails Not” has written about anhedonia in the person whose mistreatment at the hands of others has resulted in the death (and dearth) of love. That is, in people who have been so badly abused that all love, all capacity for experiencing the general goodness of the world, has been drained or squeezed or ripped out of them.

“People use the word pleasure to cover a broad spectrum of feelings. We could break it down into many categories: relief, gratification, satisfaction, enjoyment, joy, fulfillment—and surely there are more. Not all these meanings are tied to goodness—for example, sadistic revenge can be gratifying, and we ignore that fact at our peril. However, I choose to use “pleasure” as I think Reich and Lowen intended—meaning the capacity to feel connected to the benevolence in the universe. Surely this is related to love….Pleasure’s opposite, anhedonia, is a complicated psychosomatic phenomenon. … One aspect of anhedonia is that the person’s capacity for love — to feel the cushioning, warming envelopment of the energetic field, which I am quite sure exists on some physical level—is destroyed. This can, of course, be a temporary state. In grief, for example, or in the aftermath of a catastrophic event, a person may lose the capacity for pleasure or hopefulness. This loss may be intermittent or persistent, but it is a transient state, and eventually the person’s underlying capabilities to experience pleasure are reinvigorated. This can happen with the passage of time or because of more direct intervention, such as psychotherapy, where this restoration of function is a directly intended outcome.”

Fortunately, most people experience anhedonia as a temporary situation, one in which the capacity for pleasure has become limited. Focusing on the body’s language helps people to notice both their lack of enjoyment (pleasure, gratification, joy) and also the tiny light that appears as one begins to regain that capacity for feeling. Often, there is an obstacle that lies in the way of pleasure. For many of us, it can be our practice of avoidance. That is, we may believe we have a need to avoid our unpleasant thoughts, memories, images…any of the mental content that generates big unpleasant feelings. It seems paradoxical: in order to get back our capacity for enjoyment, we need to dive right into what many people consider the opposite: our rage, our terror, our horror, our despair.

In simple terms, when you work to shut down emotional experience in one realm, you effectively shut it down across the affective area in general. Specifically, suppose I was terrified as a child, spent my very early childhood fearful of parental anger, and subsequent years trying my hardest to keep my parent happy, or at least avoid getting him or her angry. In order to get out in the world and survive, for example, in order to manage school, I had to figure out a way to function without being frozen, so I learned to numb out that fear. I also avoided ever feeling angry, because that would trigger my angry parent. I probably didn’t feel much in the way of sadness, either, and happiness was a very light surface skim of a feeling, mostly relief because it went with avoiding punishment.

As an adolescent, I might have found places to go where there was a bit more safety, or I might have just assumed that all places were as unsafe as my home. As an adult, I might actually begin to look at my childhood and realize that everyone didn’t have terrifying parents, and that maybe there are lovely people in my life and I could perhaps learn to be a little trusting. But feeling good….well, that might not actually be possible. It might be far to frighterning to feel good….and I certainly don’t want to go into feeling that terror from childhood. I grew up so I didn’t have to feel that, right?

credit: http://ttactechtuesday.pbworks.com/w/page/7857889/AT%20Solutions%20for%20Writing

Unfortunately, that model isn’t reflective of how people actually work….If I want to feel the joy that I think is probably available to me, then I need to let my body feel that terror, that rage, that despair that are all stuck in me somewhere. Saying yes to pleasure means I have to say yes to all of my feelings, not just the ones I think I’d like to experience.

Mark Nepo, in Seven Thousand Ways to Listen, says “…there are small pressure points of residual feelings that live in our bodies, small pockets of trauma that hold the sediment of the stories that have shaped us. We carry these residual feelings like emotional time capsules……” and sometimes those time capsules open right up. We try out best to shut them down, to close them up, and we do it using our bodies. We tighten, we cut off our breathing, clench the jaw, tense the shoulders, do whatever we can to not feel. But then we miss out. Nepo goes on to say about those emotional time capsules “… whose small doses of healing are released when we bump into life unexpectedly. It is natural to recoil from the rupture of those potent feelings but it’s the meaning carried in them over the years that begins to heal us…” And once we have allowed those feelings, actually felt them, allowed the body to open up, expand and integrate the feelings and the meanings we make of our experience, then, THEN, pleasure can become available again.

We can start the process of feeling pleasure by tuning into sensations. Notice the warmth of your coffee cup on your hands. Notice the way that the warmth moves into your hands and begins to move up your arms.

Thanks to Katie Huffman, of Looking at Life through Agreeable Hours

Notice where you are blocked, and where you are holding on tightly, so that you cannot feel. Allow warmth and softening to enter those tight places and notice what else is present to you at this moment. Notice any sensations of movement within your body, or desire or intention to move in some way. Notice whatever sensations and feelings arise for you without judging or turning away from what you experience. Let your experience happen; let your life flow bringing whatever emotions are present for you. Feel whatever it is and let it flow. The path to pleasure can be circuitous, especially if you have cut off the pathways for many years. But getting back there is so worth the effort.

Many thanks to Dr. Scott Baum, Video of Dr. Baum on bioenergetics

And to Mark Nepo Mark’s website

Simple pleasures

There is not much more important than experiencing pleasure for us human-type beings. Pleasure is a label for certain types of sensory experiences: some things we do are pleasurable. Sometimes, things that once were pleasurable do not seem to evoke pleasure any more. When I hear that from people, I take note. Anhedonia, or the inability to feel pleasure, often accompanies depression, and sometimes is the most difficult part of depression.

Pleasure is an enormous motivator for us. We’ll do a lot of things because the consequence is experienced as pleasurable. These things can range from preparing and eating gourmet cuisine to climbing up rock faces. And when pleasure as a motivator is not available, due to depression, stress, or preoccupation, then it can be difficult to do some of the things that we need or want to do.

Pleasure is a body experience. That is, we have an experience of pleasure through our sensory systems. There is also a cognitive component, as there is for many emotionally-based experiences. We’ll have words or images to reflect our pleasure (“Mmm, mmm, good..”). We savor pleasure. Pleasure requires our sustained attention, and when we cannot give our attention to our experience, we have a dearth of pleasure in our everyday life.

When people present in the office with symptoms of depression, I ask a lot about what they enjoy….have they been having any fun lately? Lots of times people are taken by surprise by this question. First surprise, then a sudden realization and often sadness….no, no fun lately. In fact, often people cannot think of anything at all that would be fun.

Finding the pleasure again is essential. When depression is the diagnosis, we look at shifting thinking, motivating activity, and regulating sleep, appetite, and attention. Simultaneously, I ask people to start to notice where they can feel pleasure, even the most limited little bit of enjoyment, or even just relief of negative symptoms. This is a mindfulness task, requiring attention to sensory experience in the here and now, and is a very useful marker for getting better.

Pleasure is our birthright. We are creatures who have a wonderful and awe-inspiring capacity for pleasure….what will you enjoy today?

A Sensory Feast

Walking with Max last weekend, I realized something. All week I’d led a life with plenty of stimulation: work, activities, books, music, and of course social media. When I went out into the early spring morning I was smacked with a cascade of sensory experiences, different, powerful and healing sensory experiences. For some reason, my inner self was tuned to the sensorium, which is generally a good thing. It means that my thoughts are not in ascendance but my experience is my priority. So I could smell amazing things; see and hear late spring buzzing, blooming, squawking and splashing all over. My experience was of filling up a container that had been emptier than I had realized, and taking in, taking in, taking in.

I recently read something about “earthing” and “forest bathing.” These concepts were amusing to me at first, because they seem so, well, unnecessary. Of course we need to touch and feel the ground under our feet. Of course we need to spend time with trees, wildlife, decaying leaves and insect bodies, the richness of everyday life outside of the house. But when I continued to read, it because clearer to me…many people do not have these experiences with any kind of regularity. Could it be that people actually have to be TOLD to get outside? That they need to purchase “earthing” products to bring them closer to the planet on which we live, from which we have sprung, both as a species and as individuals?

The product part is the ugly side of capitalism, I guess, along with excessive corporate profits, pillaging the land for “resource development” and the like. Most people, I am guessing, actually DO have access to a bit of earth, a spot of green, a park or verge or a place where water flows spontaneously over the earth. What we need is the will to make getting to ground a priority. Rather than buying an earthing mat to go under your feet while you sit at your desk in front of your computer, get out of the office and walk on the ground.

Then I have to ask myself whether I have been spoiled by the abundance of natural riches here where I live? Maybe I am assuming too much, because finding “nature” is easy for me. (I don’t like using that term to mean whatever is outdoors, because I kind of think I’m part of nature, and you are, too). Outdoor “nature” is just a step away. And real woods, for forest bathing or hiking or just walking the dog, that kind of nature is within a few minutes of biking. We also have the “nature” of blackflies, mosquitoes, ticks, and black bears, just to be clear.

So I don’t know about earthing or forest bathing. I do know that when Max and I head out in the early morning for our adventure, both of us enjoy it. Maybe it means even more than I realized, but I do have a good sense that my body and mind need what I get when I am out there.

Below are some shots of early June at the University of New Brunswick Woodlot, where dogs and people can bathe in the forest, the swarms of insects, and the smells of late spring.

Workshop offering!

I am pretty excited to be able to tell you about a two-workshop series I am offering this spring. It is for people who work with postpartum moms, or who want to work with that population. The first day, on Friday 17 April, we’ll focus on the background information needed to effectively work with women who’ve experienced reproductive trauma. The second workshop is more specifically focused around clinical skills used within therapy sessions, and I hope you’ll bring your experiences to share.

For more information you can click HERE to go to the page on this blog. There you can download the flyer, and get the registration information. If you have questions about the content, let me know! Looking forward to seeing you in Fredericton this spring.

Leslie

I want it my way or, the REAL cure for stress

Everything in my life would be so simple if only everyone did exactly what I want them to do all the time. In fact, that’s so obvious that I can’t really believe I have never said it before. If you people would just do things the way I want them done, then I wouldn’t have all this stress.

Why can’t you conform to MY expectations? Why won’t you give up your own needs, desires, and wants in order to meet mine? If you won’t do that, then LIFE IS NOT FAIR.

And you know what that means……I’ll have to be all stressed out about life not being fair.

It isn’t really just people, though. I want the DOG to do what I want. And I really, REALLY want the weather to do things the way that I prefer them. Like I’ve really just about HAD IT with the snow. We are in the middle of yet another blizzard (can I stand to write another blizzard post?) and I want it to JUST STOP. STOP IT!!!

And that’s where the whole house of cards breaks down. Becomes pretty funny, actually, when the absurdity is revealed.

I can rail at the weather all I want but it isn’t going to have any effect. The weather is what it is. I can rail about the dog, too, and I could even do something to separate myself from him or train him to behave differently, but my major complaint is shedding and neither he nor I have any control over that.

We often live in a illusory world where we believe that we should be able to control other people. We want to control not only how they behave, but often (and more insidiously) how they think and feel. We want them to LIKE us, or think kindly toward us, or treat us with respect. We get stressed in our attempts to manage other people’s thoughts about us and their behaviour toward us. We think we know what’s going on inside other people, we think we can foretell the future based on what we think THEY think, and we think that there is something we can do about it.

Yes, that’s living in illusion. A whole whack of layers of illusion. Imagine the fabric that is called illusion….wedding dress stuff, layers and layers of tulle-like poufyness. Then imagine what it would be like to have your hold on reality swathed in layers and layers of illusion: not being able to find the ground, or find what is real….yes, that would be stressful! Sometime we believe that the solution to the stress is for the other person to just Just Shape Up. In other words, do what I want you to do, and do it now. Then I won’t have to be all stressed.

If we look at the weather, the absurdity becomes obvious. If only the weather would cooperate, I wouldn’t have to suffer. Not true! Suffering is a result of believing that I shouldn’t be inconvenienced. If the weather were perfect, I’d find something else to suffer (be stressed) about. And I can’t change the weather anyway. There’s got to be a better answer than that!

There is a better answer, one that actually works. The truth is that our thinking is wrong on two counts. First, our stress is not a result of other people’s behaviour (or even the weather). The stress comes from fighting with illusion….fighting imaginary tigers, if you will. And the second wrong-thinking part is the idea that the cure for my upset (stress) is for the other person (or dog, or the weather) to conform to my expectations. After all, I shouldn’t be inconvenienced if I haven’t agreed to it. That is not fair. And that’s a thought a lot of us share.

The cure for stress is to get out of illusion, including the illusions that life contains no inconvenience and that life is fair. Imagine beating your way through the layers and layers of gossamer fabric, wrapped oh so gently around you, encompassing and wrapping you and keeping you in suffering. The hardest part is to really allow yourself to wonder if you are in illusion. This is actually an empirical question. It is testable. You can ask yourself the question…”What do I know?” And sit with that. What do you really KNOW right here and now? What do I know as opposed to what do I think, believe, or feel to be true?

I start with the things that are incontrovertible. I know that I am breathing, for example. I can feel it. I can stop and notice my breathing. Yes, I am certain that I am breathing. Am I alive in my body? Can I feel my feet on the floor? Press them right into the floor and feel them there? Yes. I am breathing and I can I feel my body, beginning with my feet. So now I know that I am alive, a living organism, having an experience. What else can I notice?

Then coming back to the upset at hand….what do I KNOW? What have I seen, heard, observed? Can I separate that from what I think I know about what I have seen, heard and observed? For example, can I notice someone’s behaviour without engaging my beliefs about it? Without the script or storyline? Can I just see what IS without all the layers of how it Should Be or or How I Want It To Be, or How Other People Might Think About It?

It is simple. But it isn’t easy. When I ask myself, what do I want to happen in this situation, I can see if I want to control something (or someone) else. When I ask, what do I really know about this?, then I can better see what my own illusions are contributing

What do I KNOW right here in this moment? Right here and now, can I separate my moment-to-moment experience from my thoughts, beliefs, plans, memories, concepts, and ideas? Can I see what is mine and what is someone else’s? Can I allow other people the same opportunity to be themselves that I want to have in my own life? And when that becomes possible, what do I notice about my own suffering, or my own stress?

Freedom from illusion isn’t freedom from pain. But it sure can minimize the suffering.

There’s another blizzard on the way, or, wherever you go, there you are

Yes, I know that Jon Kabat-Zinn already has that title. I keep reminding myself of the truth of his statement (which probably wasn’t original with him, either) as the next in a series of substantial winter storms moves closer and closer. But my struggle with winter isn’t just about winter. It is about being present to reality, no matter whether I like that reality or not.

I have a belief that I only have to embrace winter a little and I’ll stop wishing it away. And so I do embrace winter, sort of. That is, I have developed a fascination with the light available in the winter, early morning and late afternoon light, especially when there is something developing in the weather.

I love the way that the light stretches over the land, slicing just above the horizon, lengthening shadows and distorting shapes. I love the way that the tiny sparkles of drifting snow twist and turn in the wind, eddying and flowing and suddenly becoming sharply distinct in the sunlight of midday.

I love the red of the sky….the pre-blizzard sky. And I love being at home while the snow is pounding down, puttering in the kitchen, making the house smell spicy and warm, fingers wrapped around hot steaming mugs, wool socks and fleece shirts and even a warm scarf keeping me cosy in the house.

Somehow that’s not enough, though. That’s not enough of an embrace for me to stop thinking about how much I prefer taking the dog for his walk when I don’t have to spend 15 minutes dressing myself to go outdoors. I can’t seem to get past a sensation of being closed in, either because of the overwhelming amount of outdoor clothing I require to stay warm (can you say “Michelin Man?”) or the overwhelmingly high snowbanks along the street and even along the sidewalks. I understand that I ought to be grateful for plowed sidewalks and I am, I truly am. And I am also struggling with the claustrophobic fear that winter will never, ever be over.

Yup, those crocuses are supposed to be an image of the hope of spring. I also know that yesterday was Imbolc, Candlemas, Feast of Saint Birgid, all of those holidays which are supposed to mean the same thing…halfway through winter! And today is the day for ol’ Punxatawny Phil (my American roots are showing) to let us know the rodent perspective on that. But you and I both know that today’s blizzard is more like what I should expect, not crocuses, for the next, oh, ten weeks. Depending on how high and deep that old snow gets piled on top of my crocus bed.

It is a continuous practice for me to try to be present to what IS. Winter happens to be WHAT IS right now. I watch myself attend and appreciate and then also watch my thinking slip away into fantasies of summer. Can I be kind to myself around my inattention? Can I just notice my thinking….oh, that’s what my thoughts are doing….and bring myself back to here, to now, to Winter 2015? Can I be present with my own claustrophobia and watch that feeling begin, grow, and then lose traction, as feelings always do?

In someone else’s words, “Don’t wish it away. Don’t think of it like it’s forever.” Neither one of those thoughts is helpful. Both are ways to avoid what is happening here and now. (In case you were wondering, those are lines from an Elton John song that was popular in the 1980s…yes, that long ago….see this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6KYAVn8ons)

Welcome, Blizzard. Welcome, Life.

Popsicle Days

Here is a picture of my new “therapeutic” intervention.

Yes, it is popsicle money. I have been carrying popsicle money around with me all summer. I have spent some hours on the bike path, either on the bike or running (or walking) and carrying my popsicle money with me, just in case I was in a place that had popsicles when I wanted a popsicle.

You may need to know that popsicles are not a regular thing with me. In fact, they are pretty far off my usual list of foods to eat, and they certainly don’t instill any health benefits. However, there is an opportunity for pleasure and even fun with those icy treats on a hot day when I have been exercising. And so my quest for the pleasurable popsicle.

I tried to get one and had to settle for something similar one hot weekend day three miles into a four mile run. Whatever that concoction of water, sugar and flavour was, it hit the spot. It was thoroughly enjoyable and I made the very most of it.

So I am sharing this idea, and in the therapy office, I have put out a tiny bowl full of change for popsicles, along with a sign to encourage people to plan to have some fun, plan for pleasure….plan for a popsicle. Be prepared because you don’t know when the opportunity might arise to indulge and really, deeply enjoy.
Happy summer! Happy popsicle days!

Reflection on the 2014 Retreat….

The 2014 Summer Bioenergetics Retreat on Prince Edward Island is history now. It was and it will not come again. There may be other retreats and they may be wonderful but this particular one will not be repeated.

I was fortunate to be a participant in the original retreats offered by Bethany Doyle and Rosalind McVicar. I began in 2003 and attended annually through 2012, which was the final year of their program. The retreat in 2003 was my introduction to bioenergetic therapy, and I was hooked, so much so that I applied for the training program that was starting that fall. I was fortunate to be accepted and trained with Rosalind and Bethany, as well as with Michael Maley, Louise Frechette, and Chuck Lustfield, the International Trainers who traveled to PEI for us. And I got to go to the retreat for all those years.

Several members of the initial training group are now Certified Bioenergetic Therapists (CBTs), and we have created a team to continue to offer a summer retreat on PEI. Last month, we had our second retreat with 20 participants, three therapists (see below for contact information), offerings in creativity, spirituality, and grounding movement, West African drumming, opportunities to share responsibility and support our community, plus to have massage and body work available. During the week, I also felt my connection to those who have come before, as Rosalind and Bethany offered their best wishes, and from others in my training group who sent email and phone support.

The heart of the retreat program is bioenergetics: more exercise to increase body awareness and express strong feeling, group process where we all get to know ourselves and each other, individual therapy where people can work out material that comes up in the heightened context of the group. The absolute confidentiality of the group makes it a safe place for people to work with what really matters to them, and the chance to work with deep feeling, whatever it is, opens energy for laughter and spontaneous play. And there was much laughter and much spontaneous play last week!

I feel grateful to have had the opportunity to shape and support the processes of this retreat. I learned a lot about myself and my connections to others, even as a therapist, and I appreciate the openness and willingness of all of our participants to engage in the process and support one another.

Planning for next year is underway! Mark your calendar: July 4-10, 2015, Saturday to Saturday.

Therapists: Laurie Ure, Gloucester, MA, USA http://laurieure.com/

Jessie DeBaie, Nova Scotia, CA http://www.bioenergetictherapy.ca/jessiepage.htm

Leslie Ann Costello, New Brunswick, CA https://frederictonbioenergetics.wordpress.com/

Massage and body work:

Ailsa Keppie, Halifax, Nova Scotia, CA http://www.aninspiredheart.com/

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