What are sessions like?
The way each session looks is different, though generally involves some talking, and some time on the table. First we might spend time exploring your current movement habits in sitting, standing, and or related to certain activities or emotional states. Then, you lie in various positions on your side, back, etc on a low table that is wider and firmer than a massage table, as I use gentle touch and movement that teaches you move and carry your body more comfortably and efficiently. Sessions can target pain, neurological conditions, or movement goals. At the end, you will find you sense differences in how you sit, stand and walk, and feel.
What is it about?
Feldenkrais is an approach which works with the integrative power of movement for improving the functioning of your nervous system, and enhancing your capacity to learn and change. In practical terms, you improve your posture and coordination and reduce stress on bones and joints, and at the same time use movement to regulate the various systems of your body.
What is your training background
My work is based in my 20+ years training and experience as a certified Feldenkrais® practitioner, in which I have worked in holistic centers, medical clinics, and private practice. In my work, I also am influenced by other somatic hands-on approaches with complementary perspectives like Body Mind Centering.® I am also influenced by my training in mind body therapies including Focusing®, Hakomi Somatics®, Psychophysical Therapy®, Sensorimotor Therapy®, interpersonal neurobiology, Developmental Somatic Therapy, and Intentional Touch® (for sexual abuse survivors) and Touch for Trauma Therapy with Kathy Kain, advanced Somatic Experiencing® trainer. You can see a more detailed list of my training and experience here.
What’s the theory?
People often ask me this. The theory starts with the idea that your mind and body are actually connected and not separate. This is in line with the most current theories of human movement and psychological development, called dynamic systems theory. In the past, people who studied human development believed that we were all hard-wired to go through stages of growth that just happened over time, like an automatic switch in the brain. Nowadays, it’s shown that how you respond to life and develop evolves out of your earlier experiences in a complex process of learning. We are born to learn, and from the moment you crawled or didn’t, to how you walk and the skills and knowledge you have today, your earlier learning has contributed to where you are today.
By engaging your learning process, you can literally create new pathways in your brain and body to improve your ability to handle the unexpected and improve your functioning. When you are not prepared for the challenges in your life, or it is too much – like, with accidents, injuries, or repetitive demands, however, you lose adaptability or overwhelm your resources, and the result is stress or pain. By creating situations of awareness and choice, that restore your natural movement intelligence, you can learn to become more resilient, relieve tension and pain, experience more joy and ease.
What happens on the table to relieve pain?
Through gentle, listening touch, you become aware of and let go of the habitual ways you carry tension and stress in your body. By slowing down in movement, you can change your movement habits, and without having to think about it, let go of new patterns and find new ways of being. You gain awareness of how to relax and let yourself take in support. By learning to sit, stand, twist, or roll or do other movements more comfortably, you stop straining your muscles or joints. Sessions also teach you to regulate your nervous system, and reduce your hyper-reactivity to pain or stress. Moreover, many times out of protection from past injuries your body can continue to compensate or protect after the danger is over. This actually leads to chronic pain. My work gives you the opportunity to feel that it is safe to relax and move freely again after accidents, trauma, or stress. This work reawakens your sense of inner life and helps you creatively rediscover safe ways to regain flexibility in yourself.
Why do sessions increase emotional ease?
Your emotions are felt in how you hold your body, your movement expressions, and your sensory triggers. Through sessions you learn new physical ways of standing, moving, and sensing yourself that lead you to be more resilient, act or feel differently. Thus, in sessions, as you transform physically, you will find yourself feeling calmer and internally clearer. Under intense stress, a natural response is to numb out in your body, or have protective responses, in the form of tension. Through sessions, you rediscover the safety to allow yourself to feel, and to move injured or protected areas, without pushing through resistance. Also, when you can be in touch with your body signals, you will start to change the way you do things so that you are more comfortable, more of the time.
By learning new postures and movements, you can also strengthen your ability to do things like set clearer boundaries, get grounded, or be able to ask for what you want, by matching your intentions with your body language.
How often do I need to come and for how long?
How we work together is dependent on your goals, which we can discuss at our first meeting. Many clients choose to come on a regular basis for a series of sessions. We’ll work together in a process to reach your goals.
How do I begin? Click here.
